


wishing on dandelions

by cherrykirsch



Series: of flowers and thorns [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AU!Hanahaki, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Emetophobia, Falling In Love, Flowers, Getting to Know Each Other, Group Therapy, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, Unrequited Love, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-02-14 19:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13014822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrykirsch/pseuds/cherrykirsch
Summary: Takeda stops halfway down the corridor, watching Ushijima as he looks at the mural. “It was their idea.” He says and Ushijima barely glances at him. “The flower mural. They said the walls were depressing.”“Isn’t looking at flowers depressing?” He asks and Takeda gives him a small shrug.“Some people have come to love flowers again,” Takeda says softly. “I hope you will too.”Ushijima doubts it.





	1. a vase of daffodils

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of my first proper multi-chaptered fic! (How fitting it's for one of my fave rare-pairs.)

“I didn’t know,” Was the first thing that Tendou says when he steps inside Ushijima’s hospital room.

Ushijima just gives him a soft sort of smile. “I didn’t want you to know.”

Tendou had brought red roses, and Ushijima can’t help but feel a low pang of irony as he imagines the nurses digging red roses from his lungs and pulling the petals from his flesh, but he takes them in his arms as carefully as he would hold a baby, and thanks him though he feels sick. He can almost feel the thorns making his way up his throat, scratching him raw as he coughs up petal after with droplets of his blood.

He sits on the chair beside Ushijima’s bed, his hands folded in his lap. “You should’ve told me,” he presses. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t need to know, and what would you have done if I told you?” Ushijima asks, placing the bouquet carefully on the bedside table. “Would you have loved me back?”

Tendou hesitates. “Not necessarily…” He says slowly, his eyes snapping to Ushijima’s. “But you’re my _friend_ , Wakatoshi, I shouldn’t have found out through Semi that you were in hospital.”

Ushijima’s hands tighten on the sheets of the bed frustration running through his mind. If he had it his way, Tendou wouldn’t have found out at all. “Semi told you,” he says. “Well… I suppose that can’t be helped.” 

“Can’t be helped? Wakatoshi, you almost died and I had to find out through someone else,” Tendou hisses, leaning back in his seat in exasperation. “You’ve loved me for years and I’ve only found out because you had surgery to remove flowers from your lungs.”

Ushijima sighs. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he points out. “I don’t have feelings for you. We can just move on.” Where he once felt his fingers curling and warmth spread from his chest upon seeing or speaking of Tendou, he now felt nothing more than platonic love; a side-effect of the surgery. 

Tendou just sighs and nods, tapping his foot on the floor as the room grows deathly silent. He looks back to Ushijima. “What kind of flowers were they?” he asks, and Ushijima tilts his head in question. “The ones that grew inside you?”

“Roses,” Ushijima tells him shortly, meeting his eye. “Red roses.” 

Tendou nods again and Ushijima moves his eyes away from his body to look outside the window. The sky an azure blue and dotted with white cotton clouds, it was a day almost too perfect to be stuck inside— but Ushijima would suffer it if it meant the roses got far away from him. It was then that Tendou stood up, the chair legs scraping loudly across the linoleum and Ushijima’s gaze snaps back to Tendou.

“I wanted to come in and check on you,” Tendou says as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “That’s all.”

The air hangs awkward and uncomfortable between them, but Ushijima nods regardless. “Thank you for coming.”

“I wanted to,” Tendou tells him before he turns and strides towards the door, stopping just outside it before he turns back to Ushijima with a small smile cracking his lips. “You don’t need to be so formal, old man.”

Once Tendou leaves, the room feels odd, and Ushijima takes the opportunity to grab the scissors from his bedside table and cut all the heads off the roses one by one, watching them fall into a pile on his lap until he’s left with blooms and stems. He throws the stems into the trash and eases himself out of bed, struggling a moment with the catch of the window before he throws the flowers out and into the courtyard below him, where they scatter across the ground like blood.

He feels a lot better for doing it.

*** * ***

“Name?”

Ushijima snaps himself from where he was staring blankly at the woman in front of him, lost in his own thoughts. She’s peering at him with a perfectly sculpted eye brown raised, her acrylic nails hovering gently over her keyboard, and he notices that a lollypop stick hangs from her lips.

“Oh,” he says. “Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

The woman nods and types his name into the server, and, while she waits for the data base to load she drums her nails on her desk. Once the computer lets out a small noise, she’s back to scrolling through the list of names that have popped up, clicking back and forth until she finds what she’s looking for.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi,” she repeats. “Recently undergone surgery for Hanahaki disease and was recommended… one-week in-patient on the ward?” She asks him, leans on her hand as she peers up at him.

Ushijima clears his throat and nods. “Yes.”

The woman nods right back. “Okay, good, Takeda is waiting for you in the evaluation room there,” she gestures towards the wooden door with her thumb. “He’ll run you through the ward rules and what not, and how evaluation and counselling goes. Then he’ll show you around.” 

Ushijima nods and bows. “Thank you.” He says. 

The woman smiles at him. “I’m one of the regular receptionists; you’ll have to talk to me if you want the card for the phone over there.” She points behind his shoulder. “My name is Saeko. Just ask if you need me.”

“I will,” he says, and then he hesitates. She raises an eyebrow. “Uh… can I have a lollipop?” Saeko laughs and passes a cherry flavoured lollipop under the glass divider with a wink, Ushijima thanks her once more, unwraps it and pops it into his mouth before he drops the wrapper into the trash and heads through the door to meet Doctor Takeda. 

Takeda is a short man, he only comes up to Ushijima’s shoulder, and his rather sunny disposition matches his smile and fluffy black hair. He wears a colourful sweater and has his ID badge around his neck, and he smiles and jumps up to shake Ushijima’s hand when he closes the door behind him.

“You must be Ushijima!” he says, giving Ushijima’s hand a firm shake before he drops it and gestures him to sit. “I hate to get all serious suddenly but I do have to do a quick evaluation of your condition, is that alright?” 

Ushijima nods shortly and wrings his hands together. “Yes.”

Takeda flashes him a grin and takes a seat behind his desk. “Okay! Now I’m going to ask you a series of questions and I’d like you to answer as honestly as you can.”

“Okay.” Ushijima says.

Takeda nods and turns to his computer, clicking a couple of times before he settles on something he wants; to Ushijima’s dismay, the screen is tinted so he can’t see. “How was your surgery, and how would you compare before the surgery and after the surgery?”

Ushijima thinks a moment, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. “My surgery went well; I don’t have any feelings for the person I fell in love with anymore. I think it was successful.” Takeda nods and picks up a pen, starting to scribble on a piece of paper in front of him. “As for a comparison… I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore. I don’t feel… suffocated.”

Takeda nods and gives him a comforting smile. “That’s good.” He turns back to his computer. “What kinds of flowers were they? Was there more than one kind?”

“They were red roses,” Ushijima tells him. “And there were just the roses. No other flowers.” 

“Your case was mild then,” Takeda said with a small nod. “If it was any more severe you probably wouldn’t have gotten as long as you did before you had to have surgery.”

Ushijima nods feebly and offers Takeda a wobbly smile. “I’m glad then. That my case wasn’t that severe.” 

“I am too.” Takeda tells him, and, for some reason, Ushijima believes him. “Did you refer yourself for surgery, or was your case an emergency?”

Ushijima frowns. “Shouldn’t that be in my records?” he asks and Takeda shrugs.

“It is,” he says. “But I’d rather you told me.” For a moment, Ushijima hesitates, unsure before he sticks the lollipop back in his mouth and shakes his head, Takeda gives him a small smile. “It’s okay if you don’t want to say; can I just write down what’s on your records?” 

Ushijima nods and clears his throat. “Yes.”

Takeda nods and scribbles something down. “Okay,” he says, and when he looks back up again, he looks directly at Ushijima. “Now, have you had any symptoms since your surgery?” 

“I’ve been feeling tired more recently, I’ve lost my appetite.” Ushijima replies, thinking for a moment. “I’ve not really wanted to go outside. I hate flowers, though, that was what it was like before. I think I might be a little depressed.” He says and it feels like a giant weight is being lifted off his chest as Takeda nods in understanding.

“That can happen sometimes,” Takeda says, leaning back in his seat a little. “After being in love with someone for however long, it’s… jarring and shocking to have those feelings gone so suddenly. Some people may feel lost, some depressed, it differs.” He smiles at Ushijima. “I’m glad you were able to tell me.”

Ushijima manages his first, genuine smile. “I’m glad I told you.”

Takeda turned back to Ushijima’s file on his computer. “One-week in-patient should be enough, and I don’t see any reason to keep you longer.” He clicked on a few things and then turned back to Ushijima. “I’ll lead you into the ward and have the resident nurse assign you someone to guide you your first couple of days. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” he nods.

Takeda gestures to his lollipop as they stand up. “I see you’ve met Saeko.” He says as he holds the door open for Ushijima to pass through. “She’s a great receptionist and good for a chat. I think she has a brother a year or so younger than you.”

“She’s very nice,” Ushijima says, and Takeda chuckles. “I don’t know her very well yet.”

“I’m sure you’ll get to know her well.” He assures him as he leads Ushijima through double doors after swiping his pass over the scanner.

The walls, a dry white, have been painted over with what Ushijima assumes is colourful acrylics in a mural of brilliant flowers; he scans across the mural, searching for buds of blood red and leaves of emerald green, but finds nothing. Something which makes his shoulders relax. The flowers that he does see range from ornate lilies to poppies to daisies to orchids, and for a moment Ushijima wonders what it might have been like to cough them up.

Takeda stops halfway down the corridor, watching Ushijima as he looks at the mural. “It was their idea.” He says and Ushijima barely glances at him. “The flower mural. They said the walls were depressing.”

“Isn’t looking at flowers depressing?” He asks and Takeda gives him a small shrug. 

“Some people have come to love flowers again,” Takeda says softly. “I hope you will too.” 

Ushijima doubts it. 

He allows Takeda to lead him to the next office down and he sits while Takeda talks with the nurse on reception and hands over Ushijima’s file. She takes a quick glance through it and then says something to Takeda and disappears out of a side door. Ushijima rests his head against the wall behind him and clutches the strap of his backpack a little bit tighter as he squeezes his eyes shut, when he opens them again Takeda is gone and a boy is peering over him— his noise almost touching Ushijima’s.

He blinks.

“Hello,” Ushijima says and the boy sighs and flicks his hair from his eyes.

He pouts. “Boo you’re boring.” He says and Ushijima frowns. “You’re the new guy, right? I wouldn’t expect someone like you to have Hanahaki.”

“Yeah, I’m the new guy,” Ushijima says shortly. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

The boy waves a hand dismissively. “Nothing,” he says with a small click of his tongue, before he grins and holds his hand out. “I’m Oikawa Tooru. Who are you?”

Ushijima takes Tooru’s hand and squeezes firmly before letting go. “Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

“Well, Ushiwaka, I’m going to show you around,” Tooru says with a small grin, and Ushijima notices that he’s wearing sparkly lip gloss. “Try to keep up. It’s a big ward.” 

Before Ushijima can reply – or protest to his new nickname – Tooru has already taken off down the corridor and left him in the dust. Quickly, Ushijima slings his backpack over his shoulder and dashes down the corridor, catching up to Tooru just as they enter the common room and he starts speaking; almost smacking Ushijima in the face with his sweeping hand gestures.

“This is the common room, where we bitch about the ones who put us here and how shitty our lives are,” Tooru began, a small grin on his face, and Ushijima shrinks behind him slightly at noticing the eyes on them. “Oh, don’t be shy, Ushiwaka! They don’t bite!” 

A man with black hair grins as they walk past. “Oh, but I might!” He says, and when he grins he flashes a mouth of feline teeth.

“Kuroo Tetsuro,” Tooru introduces with a slight frown. “Kenma’s insufferable boyfriend.” Kuroo doesn’t offer a hand but instead gives Ushijima a small wave. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing him around though we all don’t want him here.”

Kuroo punches Tooru on the shoulder. “Kenma does.”

“Where is the Pudding Head anyway?” Tooru asks, peering around the room and even behind the sofa in his search. “I thought he got a new game recently, I’d expected him to be in the common room until lights out.”

Kuroo shrugs and begins to scroll through his phone. “He’s showing the Chibi and they probably got side-tracked.”

Tooru pouts and pretends to care, patting Kuroo on the shoulder of his leather jacket. “How does it feel being third-wheeled in your own relationship?”

Kuroo swatted his hand away. “How does it feel being sidled with the Newbies?”

“Oh,” Tooru grins and clutches Ushijima’s arm with his hands, pressing his body close to Ushijima’s. “This one feels great thanks for asking!” 

“Gross,” Kuroo remarks with a wrinkle of his nose as Ushijima escapes his vice-like grip, he then turns to Ushijima and gives him a serious look. “Beware of Tooru. He’ll jump you.”

Tooru just rolls his eyes and begins to push Ushijima towards the other side of the room. “Don’t listen to him, he’s delusional.” He tells Ushijima and he can only nod and follow Tooru through a glass door before Tooru stops and turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “You don’t speak much do you?”

Ushijima shrugs. “Not really.” 

Tooru grins, his eyes sparkling. “Oh, we’re going to get along wonderfully. I love talking.”

“I can tell,” Ushijima says. “Where to next?”

“Courtyard!” Tooru chirps happily as he leads Ushijima through a fire door and out into an enclosed courtyard that looks like something from The Secret Garden. Tooru sweeps his hand around. “The courtyard is in the direct middle of the ward! We come out here for lunch, just to talk, or if it’s sunny. North is the common room, the office. East and West are the rooms. South is the dining area, library and where we do art therapy.”

Ushijima nods and looks around. “Where’s my room?” He asks, and Tooru grins.

 “In time, Ushiwaka!” He announces as he turns West and heads for the door. “I want to introduce you to Suga first! And it just so happens that you’re close by each other!” Ushijima shrugs and follows Tooru up the corridor until he stops outside a door labelled ‘Sugawara Koushi’ and knocks twice.

“One minute!” A voice comes from inside and Tooru tuts. 

“You better not be naked, Suga! You’re not allowed Dai in your room!” He chirps and Ushijima can hear a groan from inside before the door is thrown open and a rather frazzled looking, ashy-haired man is standing in front of him with a smile. 

Behind him, a dark-haired male is trying to redo his belt. Tooru notices this and snickers behind his hand. “Naughty, Suga!” he remarks teasingly and Suga only smiles and looks to Ushijima.

“Who’s this?” Suga asks and Tooru grins again.

“Ushiwaka,” Tooru says before he takes a firm grip of Ushijima’s arm. “Look! Isn’t he just… a prime specimen of volleyball fitness?” He asks with a small sigh of adoration and Suga laughs and tuts at him, batting Tooru’s hand off Ushijima’s bicep. 

“I doubt Ushiwaka is his name, Tooru,” Suga says before he turns to Ushijima. “What’s your name?” he asks. 

Ushijima offers him a nod of his head. “Ushijima Wakatoshi.” He says.

Suga nods and then peers at him a little closer. “Is Tooru right?” he asks and Ushijima blinks. 

“Huh?” 

“Volleyball,” Suga reiterates. “Do you play volleyball?” 

Ushijima considers this. “I used to. I had to take time off for the surgery and for this… I’ve missed the tournaments probably.” He tells Suga and he tries his best not to feel disappointed.

Suga just smiles at him. “Not to worry, I’ve missed the tournament too.” He says.

“You play?” Ushijima asks and Suga laughs.

“I used to.” He replies easily, and Ushijima smiles.

Tooru groans and pouts. “Boo! You’ve only known Ushiwaka for two minutes and you’re already best friends! What about me, Suga?~” He clutches on to the front of Suga’s hoodie. “Is it because he’s so mysterious and brooding? Don’t tell Dai, he’ll get jealous.”

As if summoned by his name, Suga’s boyfriend pops up behind him. “Why would I be jealous?”

“Because Ushiwaka is taller, broodier, and cuter than you, Daichi!” Tooru bemoans and Suga just rolls his eyes and pecks Daichi on his cheek.

“In your opinion,” Suga says.

Tooru sighs gently and shakes his head. “In everyone’s opinion, sweetie.”

Suga smiles. “Not mine!” He turns to Ushijima. “We watch volleyball every evening after dinner, you should join us some time. And I think we have a net if you ever wanted to play…”

Tooru groans again. “Stop talking about sport, Suga! We don’t speak of it here!”

Suga rolls his eyes at Tooru and pats his head gently before he turns to Ushijima to offer an explanation. “Tooru refuses to watch volleyball with us because he doesn’t want to remember how he can’t play because of how his stitching ripped the last time.”

Tooru moans and puts his head in his hands. “Suuuuga!”

Suga laughs and puts his hands up in mock surrender, grinning conspiratorially at Ushijima. “Sorry, Tooru!” He nods down the hallway. “Why don’t you show Ushijima to his room, we’ll introduce him to the group at dinner,” he turns to Ushijima. “Sound good.” 

Ushijima nods and tightens his grip on his bag strap. “Yeah.”

Suga grins and pats his shoulder. “Good,” he says, already edging back into his room. “I’ll see you then.”

Tooru rolls his eyes and grabs Ushijima by his arms, already tugging him down the hallway. “Try not to lose any underwear in there!” he calls and Suga replies by throwing a bouncy ball at him before slamming the door shut. Tooru looks at Ushijima and sighs. “He’s so temperamental…”

Ushijima eyes Tooru. “I can tell.”

Tooru stops in front door with a blank label and opens it for Ushijima, gesturing him inside. “Well, this is your room. Try not to get lost in it.” He begins backing away, giving Ushijima a wave that’s just a wiggle of his fingers, the other hand tucked behind his back. “Feel free to explore after you’ve unpacked, and one of us will come find you for dinner. Later!”

Tooru turns and takes off running before Ushijima could even think about replying. Regardless, he shrugs and enters his room, closing the door behind him. It has drab white walls and a thick pair of blue blackout curtains; the bed resembles something alike to one you would find at a hospital, and the room is fitted with a large wardrobe, a bedside table, a small desk and chair, and a small bathroom through an attached door.

Ushijima drops his bag onto the floor, bends down and pulls out the small amount of clothes he brought with him. He folds his jeans neatly and places his t-shirts on them in the wardrobe, he hangs up his hoodie and the jacket he was wearing, places his books on his bedside table beside the lamp and alarm clock and places his toiletries in the bathroom.

He opens his door to go on a wander, before he is stopped by a person leaning against his doorframe. He’s vaguely owlish, with grey and black spikey hair and wide eyes, not to mention a large grin.

“Ohoho,” The guy says and Ushijima imagines an owl standing across from him. He shakes his head to clear the image from his mind. “You must be the new guy, right? Tooru won’t stop chattering about you to Kiyoko and Akaashi.” He looks Ushijima up and down. “I don’t get it.” 

“Huh?” Ushijima asks and the man’s grin widens.

“He said you were attractive and built like Superman,” The man explains with a dismissive gesture. “I don’t get it. I mean, sure you’re tall and have broad shoulders, but if anyone’s Superman here, it’s me.”

Ushijima looks at him. “Who are you?” he asks.

“Bokuto Koutarou!” The man says, grinning wildly as he gestures to himself, doing a rather extravagant superhero pose. “Local Superman, at your service.”

“Okay,” Ushijima says, pushing past Bokuto to step into the corridor, allowing his door to click shut behind him. “I’m going on a walk.” He says, bowing to Bokuto once before he turns and heads in the opposite direction. Bokuto stops him by darting under his arm and spreading his arms wide in front of him, preventing him from slipping past on either side. 

“Whoa, what’s the rush?” Bokuto asks. “Come on, lets hang out? Talk about our feelings and shit like that.” 

Ushijima shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets. “I would rather not.” 

Bokuto grins even wider, if possible. “Good! Because same.”

“But you just said—” Ushijima points out, his brow creasing, but Bokuto cuts him off with a wave of his hand. 

“Ushijima, Ushijima…” Bokuto says and Ushijima guesses he must’ve picked up his name from hearing Tooru talk about him. “Let’s not stress bout all of that; you should come play Portal with us. It’ll be fun.”

Ushijima eyes the way Bokuto shoves his hands into his pockets. “Puzzle games are frustrating.” He says. “Also, I don’t play video games.”

Bokuto’s eyes bug out of his head. “What do you do for fun then?” he asks.

“I play volleyball,” Ushijima says before he takes a moment to think. “And I watch TV.”

Bokuto smiles and begins to push Ushijima in the direction of the common room. “In that case you can come and watch me and Kuroo play Portal. It’ll be fun.” He says enthusiastically before he pouts and blinks owlishly up at Ushijima. “Please?”

Ushijima groans and pushes Bokuto’s face away from his. “Fine, but only as long as you stop,” Ushijima wordlessly gestures to Bokuto. “ _That_.”

Bokuto grins and begins to tug Ushijima down the hallway. “Deal!” He chirps.

And, before Ushijima knows it, he’s being shoved into an armchair and forced to watch Bokuto and Kuroo yell over a frustration puzzle game. Resigned to his fate, Ushijima just sighs and settles back into his chair, crossing his arms firmly across his chest; that is, until something that feels like hair tickles his cheek. He frowns and brushes it away, tugging on it slightly while thinking that he’d better get his haircut, only for someone to yelp and wiggle away. Ushijima turns to meet the face of a youthful looking boy with rather alarming orange hair, and he grins as Ushijima stares blankly at him. 

“If you wanted my attention you could’ve just asked.” He remarks lightly, chuckling as Ushijima continues to stare at him. “How far have they gotten in the game?” he asks.

Ushijima shrugs. “I haven’t really been paying attention.”

The boy perches on the seat of Ushijima’s armchair, and lifts his feet, only to look for Ushijima’s approval. Nervously, he nods and the boy places his feet gently on Ushijima’s thighs, so light the touch is barely even there, and leans over him to nudge Kuroo.

“Hey,” he says and Kuroo’s eyes dart to his. “How far have you gotten?”

Kuroo shrugs and tosses the controller to the boy. “Why don’t you figure it out.” He says with a feline grin as he stands, causing the boy to frown, pout and smack him lightly when he walks past. “I’m going to see Kenma.”

As Kuroo stands, so does Bokuto, discarding the controller on the sofa cushion he was previously sitting on. “Then I’m gonna see Akaashi.” He says, speeding out of the room before the boy or Kuroo can say anything.

The boy, now firmly fixed on the game in front of him, hardly casts Kuroo a glance. “He’s playing his game; you distract him, you die. Painfully.” He says and Ushijima thinks that’s very extreme. “Later.” The boy drawls as Kuroo strolls out of the room.

Then, with just the boy and Ushijima alone, the boy pauses the video game and turns to Ushijima, eyeing him carefully.

“Are you the new guy Tooru won’t stop talking about?” He asks curiously. “Ushi… something-or-other. Ushiwaka was it?” He asks again and Ushijima shrinks a little in his seat.

“Ushijima,” Ushijima corrects. “Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

The boy grins. “I can see why Tooru likes you,” he comments, fiddling idly with the joysticks of the controller in his lap. “You don’t talk much. But when you do, it’s blunt and to the point. You are Tooru are quite similar, when you think about it.”

Ushijima does, and shivers in disgust. “No way.” He says. “We’re the least bit similar.” 

The boy chuckles at that. “In any case, he’s trying to flirt with you.”

“I thought that much was obvious,” Ushijima says, remembering the way Tooru replied to Kuroo and the numerous amount of times he grabbed his arm. “Painfully so.”

The boy nods. “I know. But it’s hard to tell with Tooru; he flirted with me too, when I first arrived. He does it to everyone, I guess it’s his way of being friendly, y’know?” Ushijima doesn’t but nods anyway. “I just can’t tell if he’s serious about you or not.”

Ushijima sighs a little. “I hope he’s not.” He says and the boy smiles mischievously, peering at him curiously.

“Why?” he asks. “Do you have a girlfriend on the outside? A boyfriend? A general significant other?”

Ushijima raises an eyebrow. “For such a small man you ask a lot of big questions.” He says and the boy glares slightly, his eyes narrowing and his cheeks puffing up like a chipmunk.

“I’m not small!” he says, turning away with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve just… not hit my growth-spurt yet is all…”

Ushijima pretends to nod sagely. “Ah,” he says slowly. “I see.”

The boy turns back to him, his pout slowly softening. “Well?” He asks and when Ushijima just looks blankly at him he sighs and waves his hand dismissively. “Never mind.”

Ushijima decides not to press it and looks back up at the boy. “What’s your name?” he asks. “Since you didn’t give it to me before.” 

“Hinata Shouyou,” He says with a smile that flashes his doll-like teeth. “I like volleyball, video games and tokusatsu. I hope we can be friends!” Shouyou bows, knocks his head against Ushijima and pulls back wincing, clutching the crown of his head as Ushijima does the same. “Ow…” He mutters, and Ushijima has to catch him when he about topples off the arm of the armchair from leaning back too far. 

Ushijima tightens his grip on Hinata’s wrists and pulls him up. “Careful,” he says. “We wouldn’t want you getting injured further.”

Shouyou blinks at him. “No,” he says, uncharacteristically quiet from the man Ushijima had been talking to only moments before. “I guess not.” 

Ushijima stares at him a moment, meeting Shouyou’s gaze until both of their sets of eyes travel to where Ushijima still has a grip on his wrists. In a hurry, Ushijima drops them like they’re burning hot coal, and looks away, shoving his own hands back in his pockets and Shouyou does the same.

After a moment, Ushijima dares to look back, watching Shouyou for a moment as he rubs his hands together. “You…” Ushijima begins, feeling a sudden nervousness when Shouyou’s eyes meet his once more. He clears his throat. “You said you like tokusatsu? I like Kamen Rider.” He says.

Shouyou grins at him so brightly Ushijima thinks that it rivals the sun. “I like Garo! And Kamen Rider! What’s your favourite series? Mine’s Wizard because the suits looks so cool and they have awesome fights, y’know? Like ‘ _bwah_ ’,” Shouyou mimes firing a gun. “And ‘ _gwah_ ’,” He does an explosion gesture with his hands. “And ‘ _hiyah_ ’,” He kicks his leg out and looks back to Ushijima, his eyes sparkling. “But my second favourite has to be Ex-Aid because they’re all based on video games!”

“I… My favourite is Ghost and Kabuto…” Ushijima says, and Shouyou peers at him more intently. “Because… the fights are… like… ‘ _bwah_ ’… and… ‘ _gwah_ ’. Also, I like the suit design.” He finishes nervously, and Shouyou beams at him. “I’ve never seen Garo.”

“I’ve not seen Kabuto! Let’s do a trade; I’ll show you Garo and you’ll show me Kabuto,” Shouyou stick his pinkie finger out to Ushijima. “Deal?”

Ushijima stares at Shouyou’s pinkie for a moment before he carefully interlocks it with his own. “Deal.” He manages.

“Now that we’ve made a pinkie-promise, you can’t go back on it, okay?” Shouyou says.

And he says it so seriously it makes Ushijima want to smile—as for the promise, he didn’t think he could break it even if he wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: [ cherry-kirsch ](cherry-kirsch.tumblr.com) || twitter: [ cherriwrites ](https://twitter.com/cherriwrites)


	2. a patch of thistles

It’s Suga who comes to collect him for breakfast the next morning, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. 

As Ushijima follows Suga out of his room, allowing the door to click shut behind him, he suspects that he himself must look a little like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards, seeing as he didn’t get to check his reflection in the mirror this morning. While passing the glass windows that line the opposite end of the corridor, he grimaces and immediately tries to flatten the way his hair sticks up at odd angles and curls a little, while also trying to pull up his ripped jeans.

Suga, thankfully, pretends not to notice Ushijima’s panic to look somewhat presentable, and gestures him into the dining area—where everyone’s eyes snap to him as he enters.

“Ushiwaka! ~” Tooru coos, standing up so quickly the chair scrapes backwards and makes an awful noise that causes everyone else to smack their hands over their ears. “Come over here and sit with me and Suga!” He says happily, trying to shove the tall blond out of the seat beside him, only to receive a glare. Tooru glares right back and click his tongue at him. “Now, really, Tsukki!”

Ushijima holds up a hand when Tooru turns to tell him (or order him) to do something else. “It’s alright.” He says, a faint twinge of apology in his voice. “I’ll sit with Hinata.” He continues gesturing to the table that Shouyou and his friend are sitting at before he turns to Suga. “Where can I get food?” He asks and Suga grins.

“This way,” Suga says, leading the way to a buffet-style table and grabbing both a bowl and plate for Ushijima and handing them to him when he joins his side. “It may not look like much, but the food is pretty good.”

The row of white-cotton covered tables in front of them shows everything from cereal to toast to fresh fruit, as well as a selection of fruit juices and coffees and teas. Suga immediately reaches for an instant porridge, a banana and an apple, and then picks out a fruit tea before he winks at Ushijima and returns to a sulking Tooru, leaving Ushijima to himself.

Ushijima, unsure of where to begin, makes two slices of toast, slathers them with jam and butter and makes himself a coffee before he makes his way over to Hinata’s table and sits down.

Shouyou looks up from picking idly at his bowl of cereal and gives Ushijima a tired smile. “G’morning, Ushi.” He manages before he slumps face-first onto the table. “I’m so tired!” he moans, tugging at the sleeve of Ushijima’s plaid as he tries to shove his toast in his mouth.

“What time did you go to bed?” Ushijima asks him, his voice mumbled through the food in his mouth.

Shouyou and his friend make eye contact and have an entire conversation in a second, with only looking into each other’s eyes, before he turns back to Ushijima and tries not to look sheepish. “3 am.” He mumbles, pressing his face back into the plastic of the table.

Ushijima frowns. “You should go to bed earlier. Then you’ll be more awake.” He tells Shouyou, who groans and pulls himself up onto his elbows.

“But where’s the fun in that?” He asks with a small pout, before his eyes drop down to the mug clasped in Ushijima’s hands. “Ohh! Give me half of your coffee!” He says excitedly, already making grabby hands at it before Ushijima places his palm on the middle of Shouyou’s forehead and pushes him back into his seat. 

“No.” Ushijima says simply, not yet moving his hand from where they rest on Shouyou’s forehead. “It’s mine.”

Shouyou makes a small noise of indignation and tries to surge forward again, only for Ushijima to push him back into his seat. “Why not? It’s a big mug! You can’t drink it all on your own.” 

Ushijima makes direct eye contact with Shouyou. “Yes I can.” 

Shouyou gives him puppy-dog eyes and claps his wrist. “A quarter of your coffee?”

“No.”

“A sip of your coffee?” Shouyou asks desperately and Ushijima considers this.

Finding himself weakening at Shouyou’s puppy-dog eyes, he gives a small shrug and holds out the mug for Shouyou to take, releasing his forehead and leaning back in his seat. Shouyou’s friend looks up at him and frowns a little in a way that makes Ushijima feel like he’s done something very wrong. 

“Don’t give him coffee.” He says, so seriously that Ushijima swears he’s being given a prophecy that holds great fate. “If you give him coffee, nothing can stop him.” Ushijima blinks at the boy and his pudding-coloured head of hair. Well, fuck, if that wasn’t the most ominous and vaguely worrying thing Ushijima had been told about a person in the last 24 hours. 

But, before Ushijima can take anything back, Shouyou’s hands close around the mug of coffee and brings the blue china to his lips, taking one long, drawn out gulp that seems to be more like half the mug than a single sip before he slams it back on Ushijima’s side of the table with an almost manic grin.

“Thanks!” Shouyou chirps, way to enthusiastically.

The boy beside him sighs and turns back to his DS. “You’ve done it now.” He says quietly. 

Ushijima blinks between them. “Done what?!” he asks incredulously.

Shouyou stares at him very unnervingly and Ushijima stares right back. Shouyou leans across the table, his forearms crossed and his nose almost touching Ushijima’s, and Ushijima makes a weird facial expression and leans back in his seat; trying to put as much distance as he can between Shouyou’s drilling stare. 

“You’ve got toothpaste on the side of your mouth,” Shouyou says seriously before he breaks out in a grin, licks his thumb and swipes it over the toothpaste to get rid of it. “There we go! All better!” He giggles, plopping himself back down into his seat with a little bounce.

As if called by the sense of intimacy, Oikawa slides into the seat next to Ushijima, giving him a small, fake pout as he grasps his arm. “Ushiwaka! Why didn’t you want to come sit with me?”

Ushijima gives him a very dry look. “Why would I want to come sit with you?”

Tooru punches him jokingly (and a little bit too harshly) in the shoulder. “Because we’re friends, stupid!” Tooru laughs. “And all of us fucked up, unrequited love-sters need to stick together. Side by side.” To make his point, Tooru presses so close to Ushijima that he’s practically on his lap.

Ushijima pushes him gently away. “I’d rather not.” He says and Tooru pouts, turns away and rests his chin on top of his hands.

“Most people rather would when I’m involved.” Tooru says with a pointed, mischievous grin, leaning up to poke Ushijima’s cheek. “Because I’m so devilishly handsome.”

Shouyou sticks his tongue out at Tooru. “Devilishly annoying more like.” He pipes up.

“Says you.” Tooru bites back. “You’re so small… and… tiny.” 

“Stop using different words that have the same meaning!” Shouyou says, and an approaching blond has to prevent him from launching himself across the table at Tooru, who is taunting him and sticking his tongue out. “Let go of me you weird beanpole!”

The blond drops him back into his seat and slides into the seat to the right of him. “Says the toddler.” He replies, immediately picking up an apple from Shouyou’s tray and taking a big bite of it. 

Shouyou snatches it from his hand and licks it. “Eating apples makes you look like an even bigger asshole than you were before, Kei.” He says, sticking his tongue out at him as Kei looks on, disgusted. He offers the apple again. “Do you want this back?” He asks.

Kei glares. “Not now that you’ve slavered all over it.” He says and Shouyou grins triumphantly.

“Thought so,” he says, and he shoves the apple into his own mouth. “Sweet revenge.”

Kei looks disgusted and turns to Ushijima, thrusting out his hand just as Ushijima shoves his other slice of toast into his mouth.

“My name is Tsukishima Kei,” Kei says. “One of the only dignified people here.”

Tooru pouts. “Why have you go to be so mean, Tsukki! Nobody else is going around sprinkling salt into pleasant conversation.” He says with a little huff. “The rest of us are being polite and civilised members of society!”

Kei makes a face at him. “Say’s the guy who’s practically salivating over Mr. Japan here.” He says, jabbing a thumb in Ushijima’s direction, and Ushijima immediately chokes on his toast.

“What?” Ushijima asks hoarsely before he gulps down the rest of his coffee in order to clear his throat. “My name is Ushijima Wakatoshi. Where’d you get Japan from?”

Kei waves a hand dismissively. “Unimportant.”

“Au contraire, Tsukki!” Tooru butts in with a mischievous glint in his eye. “It’s very important.”

“Just go back to drooling over Japan’s rippling biceps and toned abs.” Kei tells him with a curt nod.

Immediately, Tooru breaks out into a grin and presses himself against Ushijima’s side, replying with a chipper, “Okay!”.

Ushijima shakes him off, much to Tooru’s dismay, and he looks between Kei and Tooru. “I never agreed to that.” He says and Kei just rolls his eyes at him. “I don’t want anybody drooling over my body, I’m a person not a pair of walking abs.” While Tooru mutters a barely audible, ‘Hmm… Debatable.’, Kei leans across the table with a smirk and asks, very uncharacteristically sweetly; ‘Why? Do you have a girlfriend or something?’ 

“Or a boyfriend,” Tooru adds, resting his elbows on the table in front of him to resume the gossip pose. “We’re all gay here.”

The pudding-haired man barely looks up from his DS. “If you have a girlfriend you’d be the token straight.” He says and Shouyou grins.

“Token straight! Token straight! Token strai—” Shouyou begins to chant before he’s cut off by a raven haired girl sliding into the seat next to Tooru, who shoves a croissant in his mouth to get him to shut up. He doesn’t protest, but chews thoughtfully.

“No,” She says with a small shake of her head. “That’s Tanaka.”

Ushijima suddenly feels very out of his depth. “Tanaka?” he asks and the girl looks over to him.

“Tanaka Ryuunosuke,” The girl answers, carefully tucking her hair behind her ear. “He’s Saeko’s little brother. He comes here to flirt with a girl who is on nursing staff on a regular basis.”

Shouyou frowns. “But Tanaka’s bisexual, he told me himself.” He says and the woman gives a small shrug and turns back to Ushijima.

“I guess so, then—Ushijima, you’re reinstated as token straight.” She tells him before she daintily holds out a hand for him to shake. “I’m Shimizu Kiyoko. It’s a pleasure.” She says as he takes her hand and shakes it loosely.

“I’ve always wanted to be friends with a straight man,” Shouyou says a little too enthusiastically for Ushijima’s liking. “I’ve always wondered what straight sex is like. So, tell me, is it really as cringey as it is in porn?” He asks, peering at Ushijima with wide, curious eyes. 

Ushijima stares back at him. “What are you doing?” He asks, feeling very perplexed.

“Subverting the gay-best-friend trope,” Shouyou says with a small smile. “You’re now my straight best friend.”

“But I’m not straight.” Ushijima says slowly and Shouyou blinks at him for a moment.

He frowns then, resting his chin on his hands as he looks to Kei. “By all accounts,” Shouyou begins as Kei nods along. “It doesn’t make sense.” 

Tooru grins triumphantly, and with so much glee that for anybody who didn’t know the context of the situation it would look like he’s just won the lottery. “Oh,” he says, pressing himself more firmly against Ushijima’s side. “ _I_ think it does.”

Kei raises an eyebrow and looks to Tooru. “I guess we are all gay here.” He says and then his eyes snap to Shouyou. “And don’t _chant_ that, for God’s sake.” He continues and Shouyou slumps onto the table, dejected. 

“One of us.” The pudding-head says and Shouyou’s head snaps up.

Kei grits his teeth. “ _Don’t_ , Kenma.”

Kenma ignores him. “One of us.” He repeats and a grin stretches Shouyou’s lips.

“Don’t.” Kiyoko says in warning to Shouyou, who just ignores her.

“One of us! One of us! One of u—” Shouyou chants, only to be cut off my Tooru leaning across the table to shove an entire orange into his mouth. Shouyou, once more, doesn’t protest, but removes it from his mouth so he can peel it and eat it segment by segment; leaving him pleasantly quiet and content.

Tooru grins and breathes in deeply. “There,” he says. “Much better.”

“Incorrect.” Kenma says. “You’re still talking.”

By the look on Tooru’s face you would’ve guessed that Kenma just stood on his tail. “Kenma!” Tooru gasps, aghast at Kenma’s reply. “That’s so… so… rude! I’m a national treasure!”

This time, it’s Kei’s turn to give Tooru a look and add, “Debatable.”, in reply. Tooru looks like he’s going to melt into a puddle on the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Kiyoko rolls her eyes and leans across the table for Shouyou’s carton of milk and pauses halfway to reaching for it, she looks down at Ushijima and then back up to meet his eyes, and then, very seriously, she says; “Your fly is undone, Ushijima.” And the table falls deathly silent.

Immediately, Tooru’s eyes dart down to his crotch and back up, a small, wicked smile curving his lips. “Nice boxers.” He comments and that’s all the prompting Ushijima need to turn away from the table and quickly zip his fly up, his hands shaking and his neck and ears flushed red.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Kei says, gesturing to his burning ears. “It happens to the best of us.” He adds nonchalantly.

Shouyou nods furiously in agreement. “Yeah,” he says. “Once my dick popped out of my boxers and I had my fly undone. I didn’t realise until I went to the bathroom.” 

Tooru nods in agreement. “Yeah! The same thing happened to me.”

Kiyoko sips on her milk carton and shrugs. “Can’t relate.” She adds. 

* * *

Shouyou finds Ushijima sitting down opposite the flower mural, and has no idea how he managed to find him after he disappeared without a word after lunch. But he just gives Ushijima a soft smile and sits next to him, his knees tugged to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, his head on his knees. 

“Suga saw you,” Shouyou says. “He thought you might need company.”

Ushijima turns to Shouyou and considers this. “Why didn’t he come?” He asks. 

“As much as Suga seems like the Team Mum, he’s very hard on tough love.” Shouyou explains with a chuckle. “Me? Not so much. He said you looked funny so I came to keep you company.”

Nodding, Ushijima turns back to the mural. “I see.”

“What’s wrong?” Shouyou asks, and Ushijima can’t remember ever being asked that with so much sincerity and concern. “Was it because of breakfast? Kiyoko tends to be a little blunt, but she means well, and she told me to tell you that she’s sorry because we couldn’t find you. There’s no need to be embarrassed about it.”

“I’m not embarrassed.” Ushijima says far too harshly to be convincing, but Shouyou nods anyway and scuffs the toe of his shoe on the linoleum. “It’s…” He gestures to the mural in front of him. “How can you stand it?”

Shouyou looks between the mural and Ushijima, frowning. “What?” he asks.

“The flowers.” Ushijima bites back, glaring furiously at the colourful petals and green stems, and how they swim before him in a river of red. “You’ve got them everywhere, and you’ve got to stare at them and look at them. Takeda says that some of you love them again, and I don’t…” Ushijima sucks in a deep breath, trying to swallow down his anger. “I don’t… _get it_.”

Shouyou blinks at him and then curls over himself. “Suga loves flowers.” He says quietly. 

“Which were his?” Ushijima asks quickly and Shouyou gives him a worried look.

“Ushijima—” He begins with a small sigh and Ushijima’s eyes snap to his.

“Which were his?’ He repeats more firmly, standing up. 

Crumbling, giving in, Shouyou points to the mural. Ushijima follows the line of his finger, walking forward as his eyes meet a cluster of pink peonies and daisies. He imagines coughing them up, petal after petal, until he’s almost gagging on the paper-thin, smooth pink petals. He images the scratch of the stems making its way up his throat, the way his lips can’t quite open far enough to let the head of the flower pass, and he imagines coughing, choking on it, drowning from the inside out on beautiful flowers. He imagines that the daisies come out easier.

He lifts a hand to clutch his throat and turns back to Shouyou, hoarse. “Which ones were Kiyoko’s?”

Shouyou stands with him then, his eyes creased in worry. “Ushijima, I don’t think—” He begins, only to be cut off by Ushijima’s glance; a pitiful combination of desperation and danger. His hands shaking, he points to the right of the peonies. “Those ones.”

His eyes meet the bright hues of yellow tulips, sweetpeas and crocus. He imagines the three flowers choking him, drowning his lungs in stems, leaves and colourful petals. They stain his lips like bright blood as he coughs them up, blood splatters his hands and the sink below him, and he heaves, trying to force the flowers up his windpipe.

As if possessed, he lifts his other hand to his throat. “Tooru’s?” he asks and Shouyou points to a crying cherry blossom tree surrounded by poppies.

The branches scratch his throat raw as he coughs up tiny, love-heart pink petals and wider, round red petals; the branches hurt so much he gasps, wheezes and heaves, suffocating, they pierce his throat almost like thorns. The poppies are easier, they slip out covered in blood and saliva, and he hardly gets a breath before the next waterfall of cherry blossom blooms are making their way up his throat,

“Kenma’s?”

Shouyou points wordlessly to a small collection of lilac’s and pansies. So… small that Ushijima can imagine suffocating on them easily. 

“Kei’s.” He manages, less of a question and more of a demand now, and Shouyou points to baby’s breath, pink begonias, and white heather.

Ushijima nods at that, overwhelmed at the imagines sensation of the flowers and stems making their way up his throat and spilling from between his fingers like water, and staggers back against the wall, hardly realising the tears that leak down his cheeks until Shouyou is wiping them away with the sleeve of his jumper. 

“I don’t…” Ushijima tries to say, only to be cut off by the saltiness of his own tears. “I don’t… _get it_.” He repeats. “You can look at them and see beauty. I look at them and I want to cut them like they cut me.” He manages, lifting his hands from his throat to tangle in his hair. “How can you not look at them and feel them suffocating you?”

Shouyou gives him a very serious look. “Do you still love the person you fell in love with?” He asks.

Ushijima shakes his head. “No,” he chokes out. “But I still feel like I’m drowning. Do you know what he gave me when he came to visit me in hospital?” Ushijima asks with a bitter, tearful laugh. “Red roses. _Red roses_. I don’t love him, I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.” He spits the words out like venom. “I hate… I hate…”

“I know,” Shouyou says softly, clutching Ushijima’s arms. “It hurts to fall in love with best friends. It hurts… to love. The lucky ones only get heartache. The unlucky ones get to choke on flowers." 

Ushijima pressed his forehead against Shouyou’s chest. “I hate. I hate.” He mumbles into the sweet, lavender scented fabric of his sweatshirt. “I hate him.”

“He’s your best friend,” Shouyou says softly, sadly. “You can say you hate him all you want, but you can never force yourself to hate him. Trust me, I know. You get stuck on fake feeling so much that you’re not really sure that anything is real, and then you don’t feel anything.”

Ushijima buries his face further into Shouyou’s sweatshirt. “You know a lot about this.” He says quietly. “Is this the first time you’ve had Hanahaki?”

“I don’t talk about my past loves a lot,” Shouyou says. “You’ll never find out.” 

Ushijima sniffs. “Is that a challenge?”

“If you want it to be.” Shouyou replies easily and with a hint of a grin in his voice. “Do you really hate the mural that much? Do you really… not see the beauty in the flowers?” He asks softly.

“Flowers… aren’t beautiful to me.” Ushijima whispers. “I never really liked them. They spread pollen everywhere and drop petals onto the ground, they’re a hassle to clean up. But after coughing up roses, petal after petal, flower after flower… I look at them… and all I can see is… something ugly.”

Shouyou runs his hand through Ushijima’s hair. “We painted that mural because Tooru and Suga thought it would be cathartic.” He explains. “It helped Suga, he got over his Hanahaki without a second bout. Tooru… I don’t know if it helped that much, but he’s always found flowers pretty. Kei did it because Tooru made him. Kiyoko did it because she loved—loves—the girl whose flowers she coughed up. Kenma...” Shouyou lets out a low chuckle. “I made Kenma paint his flowers.”

Ushijima pulls away from Shouyou’s sweet scent and gazes up into his eyes. “How long have you been here?” Ushijima asks him and Shouyou grins. 

“Not telling.” He says. “You’ll have to guess that too.”

“So secretive for such an open guy.” Ushijima says and Shouyou grins harder.

“I’m getting déjà vu.” He says and Ushijima chuckles.

Shouyou lowers himself back beside Ushijima, leaning comfortably into his arm. “I love flowers.” Shouyou says softly. “But only the ones I haven’t coughed up.”

Ushijima looks at him. “Which ones are you favourites?” He asks and Shouyou considers this. 

“Sunflowers,” He decides after a moment, smiling at Ushijima. “Because you can roast and eat the seeds.”

Ushijima reaches out to ruffle Shouyou’s hair with a small, barely-there smile. “They suit you.” He says and Shouyou grins wider and leans into his touch a little bit.

“Yeah?” He says and then he peers at Ushijima curiously. “If you had to pick; which would be your favourite?” Upon noticing Ushijima’s shocked and perplexed look, Shouyou shakes his hands in front of him. “I mean; only if you _had_ to pick one.”

“Hibiscus.” Ushijima says after a moment of thought. “I had it in champagne at New Year’s one time. It tasted nice.”

Shouyou blinks at him for a moment and then bursts out into peals of laughter, Ushijima watches him in amusement until he’s calmed down enough to articulate himself. After a minute of solid laughter, Shouyou pulls himself back up into a sitting position and dries his eyes, still chuckling happily to himself. 

Ushijima rests his elbow on his knee and smiles at him. “What’s so funny?” He asks and Shouyou’s chest moves up and down with the force of trying to swallow his laughter.

“I just—Give me a minute!” Shouyou wheezes, pressing his face into his knees before pulling back up and smacking his cheeks twice as he turns back to Ushijima, his lips immediately wobbling as he tries to prevent a wide grin. “I just think it’s funny that we both picked flowers that can be eaten.” 

“That’s what you were giggling about?” Ushijima asks. “It wasn’t that funny.”

Shouyou scoffs and starts giggling again. “It was to me, and that’s what counts.” He says, looking at Ushijima very seriously. “Sometimes you’ve just got to stand up to what’s in your way, and what’s putting you down and laugh really hard until your stomach hurts and your head’s spinning.”

“Why?” Ushijima asks.

“Because things seem less scary when you do,” Shouyou says with a small nod. “Also, there’s just something very cathartic about laughing when you’re not supposed to be. It’s like… a giant middle finger to the world.” 

Ushijima considers this. “There are _some_ times when you’re not supposed to laugh.” He points out.

Shouyou frowns in confusion. “Like when?” He asks.

“Funerals, for one.” Ushijima says and Shouyou scoffs.

“Everyone needs a good laugh at a funeral.” He says. 

Ushijima thinks. “When the bride is coming down the aisle at her wedding.”

Shouyou raises an eyebrow at Ushijima. “If her hair and makeup looks stupid, then I’m gonna laugh, Ushijima.” He says as if that much was obvious.

“But you shouldn’t.” Ushijima replies.

“Yes, but I will anyway.” Shouyou says confidently. “And that’s what makes it so cathartic! Laughing is the worst in that situation, but you do it anyway because you need to be less terrified and less caught up in everything. So, next time you’re upset about something or scared, just laugh, laugh until your stomach hurts; I swear you’ll feel better.”

Ushijima raises his eyebrows. “It really works?”

Shouyou nods sagely. “I swear it on my life.” He says, a hand on his heart. “Scouts Honour.”

“That’s two different things.” Ushijima points out and Shouyou shrugs.

“Double the protection on my advice.” He says and Ushijima can’t fault him on that. 

“Okay,” Ushijima says. “Next time I feel upset, scared or less… here… I’ll laugh. But if it doesn’t work, I want my money back.”

Shouyou puffs his cheeks up at Ushijima and pouts. “But you didn’t pay me!” Shouyou protests as Ushijima laughs, leaning forward to pound his fists on Ushijima’s chest. “Pay me! 100 yen an hour! Don’t be stingy!”

Ushijima pulls out his pockets in front of Shouyou. “I don’t have any money.” He says. “I can’t pay you.”

Shouyou pouts and crosses his arms across his chest. “You can pay me later, and I will be reminding you of that fact!” He says, wagging a finger at Ushijima’s face.

“Alright, alright,” Ushijima gives in. “What was it? 100 yen an hour?”

“Yes,” Shouyou nods. “And dental.”

“Dental?” Ushijima says with a shake of his head. “I can’t afford that.”

“Fine,” Shouyou caves. “Free company lunches.”

Ushijima thrusts his hand out. “Deal, because you get that anyway.” He says and Shouyou grins as he takes his hand and shakes enthusiastically. “Looking forward to working with you.”

“And you, boss.” Shouyou replies, dropping Ushijima’s hand before he goes very serious. “Just… promise me one thing, okay?” He asks.

“What?” Ushijima asks.

“Don’t… do something that you’ll regret.” Shouyou tells him.

Honestly, Ushijima doesn’t think that will be possible.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: [ cherry-kirsch ](cherry-kirsch.tumblr.com) || twitter: [ cherriwrites ](https://twitter.com/cherriwrites)


	3. a posy of red camellias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was tough to write, as someone who's experienced this stuff personally and as a writer.
> 
> TW; suicide. (Tags will be updated accordingly)

It takes three days for Ushijima’s life to melt into normality as easily as ice cream on a hot pavement.

He wakes at 6:30, showers. He meets Shouyou for breakfast, fights him off to finish his coffee and his food. Clears away his tray. Goes back to his room, brushes his teeth, reads until Suga comes to collect him for art therapy or for lunch. Shouyou pounces on him and drags him to his room to watch Kamen Rider or some drama until dinner. He goes back to his room. He reads, brushes his teeth, changes into his pyjamas and goes to bed at 10:30 sharp.

He was happy with his new schedule, the way it slotted nicely and neatly into his life the way he wanted it to. The only thing that he didn’t have the hindsight to be worried about was group therapy.

So, Ushijima sits uncomfortably in a dining room chair in between Kiyoko and Kei. Around him are a few faces he hasn’t gotten to meet yet, their eyes drift past him as if he isn’t there, and for that he is grateful. Shouyou sits across from him in the circle, next to Tooru and Kenma, and he gives him a cheeky smile and a small wave when he looks over, apprehensive. Ushijima swallows his paranoia and convinces his hands to uncurl from fists and lay uselessly on his legs, waiting as Takeda organises his clipboard and clears his throat.

“Okay!” Takeda says and the room immediately falls into a hushed silence. “Now, may I say, it’s lovely to see you all again; you’re looking wonderful, very sunny.” He compliments.

Oikawa flicks his hair from his face. “Thank you, Doctor Takeda, I’ve been using a glowing highlighter recently.” He says and Shouyou giggles beside him.

Takeda chuckles, shakes his head and looks back down at his clipboard. “As you know, I’m the resident Hanahaki Recovery expert. I may be new, but everyone here met me when they first came in, so we’re familiar with each other.” He says. “Since last week, we have gained a new person.” He continues, gesturing to Ushijima, who tenses and digs his nails into his legs. “Ushijima Wakatoshi, most of you should be familiar with him. If not, there will most probably be time to.”

Takeda places the clipboard in his lap, face-down, and looks around the circle. “We’re just gonna ease Ushijima in slowly at first okay? So, please, go around, introduce yourself and say how long you’ve been in-patient for and why, if you feel comfortable.” 

Tooru stands first, grinning brilliantly across the circle at Ushijima. “As you all know, I’m Oikawa Tooru! I’ve been here for a couple of months now, and I’m here because I keep getting Hanahaki.” He says before he throws Ushijima a flirty wink and sits back down.

Shouyou leaps up. “Hinata Shouyou! I’ve been in-patient for a month, and I’m here because I’m trying to deal with the separation of my feelings.” He says, grinning before he sits down.

Kei sits up straighter in his seat. “Tsukishima Kei, three weeks.” He says simply before he slumps back into his chair.

“Shimizu Kiyoko.” Kiyoko introduces, standing up with her hands tucked behind her back. “Four months. Anxiety.”

A tall, beautiful slender male beside Kiyoko stands up, and for a moment Ushijima thinks they could be brother and sister, but that is quickly dispelled when he introduces himself as Akaashi Keiji. “I’ve been here two months, one week and five days.” He speaks as if he’s reciting the time off a list. “And I’m here because I got Hanahaki for the second-time days after getting removal surgery.” 

He sits and Kenma stands, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Kenma Kozume. Two months. Social anxiety.” He says simply, scuffing he toe of his trainer on the carpet before he quickly sits himself back down. 

“I’m Sugawara Koushi; Ward mother.” Suga introduces as he stands and the room erupts into giggles. “I’ve in-patient for… god… almost half a year now. And I’m here because removal surgery and requited love doesn’t get rid of my flowers.” He says, throwing up a peace sign. “But I’m doing great!”

A girl with brown hair is next to stand, and she grins as she gives the crowd a small salute. “Mishima Yui! I’ve been in-patient three months and a couple weeks.” She says before she sits down, swinging her legs back and forth as she looks around the group.

Instantly eyes snap over to Ushijima and he tenses visibly, grips tight onto his jeans. Slowly, he stands, darting eyes meeting Shouyou’s across the circle, and he finds his thudding heart beat beginning to calm as Shouyou gives him a bright smile and a thumbs up.

He clears his throat nervously. “I’m… Ushijima Wakatoshi.” He says quietly. “I’ve only been here a week. I’m here because… I’ve not been feeling great recently, and this was recommended.” He finishes before he slumps back into his seat, wanting nothing more than to hide in the collar of his hoodie.

Takeda seems pleased as he smiles around. “Great!” he says before he looks back down at his clipboard. “Today I’m doing good, although my bike tyre popped on the way here and I spilt coffee all over my desk. How’s the day treating you all so far?” He asks.

Shouyou thrusts his hand in the air, almost smacking Tooru in the process. “Oh, oh! I had porridge for breakfast, I read my volleyball magazines and me and Ushijima are going to watch Kamen Ride later today!” he says excitedly, while Tooru moans lowly and presses his hands over his ears and Akaashi makes a face.

“No sports!” Tooru scolds him, only to be silenced by Suga shushing him quietly

“Ushijima and I.” Akaashi corrects. “Me and Ushijima is not technically correct.”

Shouyou gives Akaashi a grateful smile. "Thanks Keiji!” He chirps before he turns back to Takeda. “So, Ushijima and I are gonna watch Kamen Rider lately because he’s promised to show me Ghost.”

Akaashi looks pleased and Takeda laughs. “That’s brilliant, Shouyou.” He says with a smile, pushing up his glasses. “Anybody else? I know Shouyou’s enthusiasm is hard to match.”

“I wrote a poem today.” Yui pipes up, flushing when everyone turns to her. “A small one, about Hanahaki. It’s not good but I hope to write more today.”

Suga gives her a smile and Ushijima notices how Yui seems to shrink a little, her smile wobbling as she meets Suga’s gaze. “That’s brilliant, Yui!” Suga comments before he turns to Takeda. “Well. I had orange juice for breakfast, I read a book and talked to Daichi on the phone. I’m going to finish my book tonight.”

Tooru pouts and leans across to rub Suga’s back. “You need to eat more, Suga! Orange juice is not breakfast.” He scolds and Suga chuckles, rubs the back of his neck sheepishly as Tooru turns to Takeda and flicks his hair again. “I had muesli and fresh fruit. I exercised for thirty minutes afterwards, and then I painted my nails and spoke to Saeko.” He says, waving his gold-painted nails in front of him proudly. 

Yui seizes his hand and peers closely at his nails, dropping his hands with an appreciative nod. “Well done, Tooru, they don’t look half bad!” She says and Tooru flushes in pride.

“Coming from you that’s a massive compliment!” He replies with a grin.

Kei snickers from beside Ushijima and stands. “I jogged around the courtyard this morning, had a shower, and then napped until now.” He says easily. “Oh, and I also avoided Chibi all morning.” He continues and Shouyou puff up his cheeks at him. 

“Rude!” He heckles.

Kei gives him a rude gesture and sits down as Takeda stifles laughter. “Please refrain from crude language and gestures, Tsukishima.” Takeda tells him and Kei just folds his arms across his chest and grins. Takeda’s eyes scan over the group again. “Anyone else? Kenma?” At the sound of his name, Kenma flinches, shrinks a little further in his seat.

He makes a small noise and Shouyou nudges his shoulder, he lifts his chin out of his hoodie. “I completed a level of my game.” He says and Takeda grins.

“Well done, I know you’ve been working hard on that game.” He says.

Kiyoko lifts a hand daintily into the air. “I wrote my… my friend a letter.” Kiyoko says softly, unsure of her own words. “Things I never got to tell her. I don’t know if I’m going to end up sending it, though. It made me a little sad.”

“I slept until the session.” Akaashi says simply. “It was neither good nor bad. It was average.”

Takeda nods and turns to Ushijima, who takes the non-verbal cue and straightens up a little in his chair. “I had toast and coffee for breakfast. I read the newspaper and sat in the courtyard for a while." 

Tooru makes a soft noise and Ushijima looks to him. “That’s _boring._ ” Tooru complains and Ushijima feels like shrinking into his seat a little. “You’re like an old man, Ushiwaka, newspapers and toast. You should try avocado toast; it’s healthier than butter.”

Ushijima nods. “Thanks.” He says.

“I’m glad that most of you had good starts to the day, just try to continue to think positively.” He says before he clasps his hands together. “Last week, you shared some of your worries and struggles with the group here, do any of you want to share anything else? Remember, you’re all friends here, you’ve all gone through the surgery at some point; maybe you can help each other out.” He offers, and then he sits back, waits for someone to speak. 

It’s Akaashi that speaks first.

He shuffles forward a little on his chair and clenches his hands into fists. “Last week, I was doing better, I think. Now I can’t get out of bed, and I have this constant feeling of being uncomfortable in my chest.” He explains, releasing a fist to lay a hand over his heart. “It feels like a weight, dragging me down. And I’m so, so tired.” He finishes, closing his eyes and forcing out the last words as if it pains him deeply.

“I’m sorry, Akaashi.” Kiyoko says gently. “That must suck.”

Akaashi nods as Shouyou shuffles forward on his chair, stretches out his hand to Akaashi. He looks at it a moment, blinking, before he softly lays his hand in Shouyou’s, who gently clasps it between his other hand. “You got out of bed today,” Shouyou reminds him. “That’s a win. You did great.” 

“It doesn’t feel like I did.” Akaashi says, his brow furrowed in confusion. “I just feel pathetic.”

Shouyou considers this. “You could never be pathetic, Akaashi. Some days are harder than others, and if you managed to get out of bed today to see all of us, that’s great.” He says and Akaashi looks at him. “Try thinking of the really hard things as a win, like, ‘ _Woah! I got out of bed today! That’s totally awesome, and that’s still a big win if it’s the only thing I did today!_ ’, okay?” He asks.

Slowly, Akaashi nods and Shouyou smiles and pats his hand, drops it and shuffles back into his seat as Akaashi leans back in his, his eyes falling shut.

Kei gives the group a smile. “I don’t have anything bothering me, I’m the token okay-person.” He says and Shouyou frowns and points at him.

“I thought we all agreed that you’d work on not being an asshole.” Shouyou says and Kei rolls his eyes. “Also, thinking you’re above us; two hundred yen in the asshole jar.” He continues. 

Kei glares at Shouyou, grumbles and digs in his pocket for loose change, which he hands over to Kiyoko who puts it in a jar behind her that’s already half-filled with coins and assorted notes. He sits back in his seat and scowls. “I fucking hate this family.” He mumbles and Suga gasps, a hand clutched over his heart.

“Shame, Tsukki!” he says. “You’re going to give your poor old mother a heart attack!”

“Okay, two things.” Kei begins. “You’re not my mother, and don’t call me Tsukki. We’ve been over both of these things.” 

Tooru pouts at him. “Don’t be like that Tsukki!”

Kei throws his arms in the air. “What did I _literally_ just say?”

“Oh, come on now, Tsukki.” Suga coos gently, and, defeated, Kei slumps back in his chair, his arms folded angrily across his chest. “Tell us one of your worries or struggles. Like Doctor Takeda said; We won’t judge.”

Kei pauses for a moment, looks between everyone and sits a little bit straighter and then looks down at his feet, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “I’m… afraid that… once all this is over and I go back… I’m not gonna be able to be friends with… the person that I loved—love.” He says before he groans, tangles his fingers in his hair and squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to explain! I still care about them, so much, but… I’m not good with any of this; talking, emotions.”

Tooru shrugs and leans back in his chair. “Just forget about them. Stop talking to them” He says, waving his hand dismissively. “It’ll be better for both of you in the end.”

Kei gives him a bitter laugh. “Says the guy who gets Hanahaki from basically everyone he meets,” Kei snaps at him, glaring furiously. “You’re like a walking floral STI.”

“Hey, fuck you.” Tooru snaps back. “At least I’m not being a bitch about my Hanahaki. You can recover from it, you can love again, I can’t. Consider yourself lucky.” He says and Ushijima swears he catches a twinge of bitterness in his words. “So back the fuck off, Tsukishima, you have _no reason_ to be the one to call me out.”

Suga holds his hands out between them to prevent a full-blown argument from exploding into existence, and looks between them for a moment. “Tooru, I don’t think you should be giving Kei advice,” he says before he turns to Kei. “And, Kei, I know Tooru’s hurt you but you had no reason to say that sort of stuff about him.”

Tooru shrinks into his seat as Kei moves to cover his face with his hands.

“Sorry, Kei.” Tooru offers quietly.

Kei sniffs a little, drags his hands over his eyes and straightens up. “Thanks.” He says and Tooru nods, shrinks back into his seat. “Maybe it would be easier if I stopped talking to him, but I don’t want to do that. I just… I don’t… know what to do.” Kei says weakly.

“Does he still want to talk to you?” Yui asks, startling the room and Kei turns to her to nod. “You obviously want to talk to him still, so just talk to him. The worst thing that could happen is that you lose someone who didn’t care about you enough in the first place.” She tells him. 

Kei thinks for a moment. “He got me chocolates when I was in hospital,” He says suddenly. “He said he didn’t want to get me flowers because it would’ve been rude. I don’t like chocolate that much but it made him happy to see me eat them.”

Yui smiles. “You do love him.”

“Of course I do.” Kei replies.

“Then don’t worry so much.” She tells him. “I know it’s hard not to, but just remember that he wants to be around you as much as you want to be around him. He cares about you as much as you care about him.” 

Takeda smiles from his seat. “We’re firing through these today,” he says. “It seems you have a good handle on how to help each other. Carry on.” He finishes, waving his hand to prompt them to continue talking amongst each other.

Kei peers across the group, his eyes meeting Ushijima’s with a grin. “Why don’t we hear from the newbie, huh?” He asks. “What say you?" 

Ushijima shakes his head. “No thank you.” He tells him.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Ushiwaka!” Tooru prompts, pouting as he leans across the circle to him. “We’d all just love to get to know you! We don’t judge.”

Suga nods in agreement. “Tooru’s right—we don’t judge.” He says. “Plus, I’m sure it’ll make you feel better to talk about things with people who have experienced Hanahaki.”

Ushijima is unconvinced but sits a little straighter in his seat anyway. “I haven’t… felt the same since… my surgery.” He begins quietly, not meeting anyone’s eye as he stares down at hoodie sleeves. “Some days… I’m okay, but then other days, all at once, I can’t function—so I cut myself off, and I don’t talk to anyone.”

Suga’s brow creases. “That isn’t healthy, Ushijima.” He says. “You need to talk about these things.”

“I don’t want to bother anyone,” he says. “It seems trivial compared to everything else. But then I get… angry when people don’t notice, and I just wallow in myself.” 

Tooru gives Ushijima a look. “That’s self-destructive, Ushiwaka.” He says. “Trust me, I know. It makes yourself feel worse than you already do and it accomplishes nothing; if you want to talk to someone, talk to someone. It’s the only way things will ever get better.”

“How do you know?” Ushijima snaps.

Tooru doesn’t falter. “I just do.” He says. “You’re not the only one who’s been through this shit. You’re not special. You’re one of the fifty thousand people who are affected by Hanahaki Disease in Japan every month.”

“I know I’m not special.” Ushijima says, the anger and bitterness beginning to crawl into his tone.

“You seem to act like you think you are.” Tooru says and, while Ushijima finds himself speechless, he continues. “You act like you’re the only one here who has ever been through shit and Hanahaki, and then you go and isolate yourself. You don’t talk to the people who can help you and then you have the audacity to point this out yourself and make us feel like shit for not noticing when you look like a rock 95% of the time.” 

“Tooru…” Takeda warns. “Ushijima…”

Ushijima stands up, the chair scraping back on the linoleum. “Hey,” He growls. “Fuck you.” 

“No,” Tooru says, standing up to meet his glare. “You go fuck yourself.”

“And what gives you the privilege to tell me to go fuck myself?” Ushijima asks, his voice reaching a loud roar as Kenma and Shouyou flinch and Suga watches on, looking heartbroken. “What gives you the privilege to be the biggest fucking hypocrite I’ve ever seen? What makes you so special that you get to act like an airhead and then ty to call others out?” He roars and Tooru trembles, his hands clenching into fists. “Tell me instead of preaching me bullshit!”

“Because I get it!” Tooru screams. “I fucking get it, alright?”

Ushijima scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Tooru begins, taking in a giant breath as he squeezes his eyes shut. “That I do the exact same shit that you do. I do self-destructive shit, I self-harm. I just don’t cut, or burn, or scratch, or read shit that I know will trigger me; I sleep with people, I can’t not think of sleeping with people, and I fucking hate it. It’s the only way I get to feel something that isn’t the flowers crawling up my throat because of the one person I actually loved, or the way I don’t feel anything.”

“I…” Ushijima begins, but the words die on his lips at the look of Tooru’s tear-streaked face, the hurt look in his eyes.

Tooru takes in a shaky breath. “So don’t… try to tell me that I don’t fucking understand.” He says. “Because I do. You like to think you understand, but you really, really don’t.”

Takeda stands then, a stormy look on his face. “Tooru,” he says and Tooru flinches. “Meet me in my office. Ushijima, go back to your room, we’ll talk later.”

Ushijima takes one last look at Tooru and says, “Go fuck yourself.”, watching Tooru’s face wobble and fall before he turns around and stalks out of the room, the door slamming loudly behind him.

Really, Tooru doesn’t understand the half of it. 

* * *

In the silence of his room and the chemical smells of his bedcovers, Ushijima comes up with a series of plans—all of them have the same eventual outcome that makes Ushijima feel soothed and at peace. 

Because every time he closes his eyes he sees the flowers crawling up his throat and blood splatters on the bathroom tile. He sees Tendou’s face and imagines lunging forward to claw at it and sob, choked up by his own tears and blood-red petals the same colour of his love’s hair pouring from his lips. He remembers the scratches of the thorns tearing at his throat, his skin, terrified that they would consume not only his lungs but entire body; his blood, his bones, his eyes.

And he sees his love, a red rose between his fingers, the first whole one he coughed up into the bathroom sink at Shiratorizawa, and he feels his lungs burn, his stomach ache as he coughs up petal after petal, unable to distinguish his blood from the colour of the rose’s bloom.

He wants to feel angry, replicate the way he screamed at Tooru, battered him down into tears, but, instead he feels numb. He feels hopeless. And he wants to give up.

So, he decides to do just that. 

He meets with Takeda, apologises, eats dinner alone at a corner of the dining hall. And he starts to hoard, he sneaks into nurse’s station the next day when the sifts are changing and takes Suga and Tooru’s prescriptions and the next day he repeats his plan; looking concerned when Takeda confronts them about losing prescriptions. He gives Akaashi his book and tells him not to bother about returning it to him, he gives Shouyou the password to his laptop and tells him to use it whenever. The next day he goes back to the nurse’s station and takes Kenma’s prescription. He gives Suga a hug at dinner that night, says goodnight to Kei and Kenma. He apologises to Tooru. 

Then, he retreats to his room. Changes into his pyjamas, goes into his bathroom and closes the door behind him. He takes his toiletry bag from the sink and takes out four bottles of pills that have names he can’t pronounce, he pops them open and he swallows the first lot dry, leaning own to gulp water from the tap. He unscrews the second bottle, hands shaking, and takes them handful by handful, allowing some to slip from his fingers and scatter into the porcelain sink. He discards of the bottles into the trash, and the next two go down easily, already feeling faint.

And, then his stomach lurches and Ushijima stumbles to the toilet and heaves, forcing himself to keep down everything in stomach.

“Ushijima?” A voice comes and Ushijima freezes, going completely silent. “It’s Hinata. I wanted to borrow your laptop.”

Ushijima steadies himself, makes sure he isn’t going to immediately throw up before he turns towards the bathroom door. “It’s in my wardrobe.” He manages, voice hoarse, and then he hears Shouyou rummaging in his wardrobe, humming happily when he finds his laptop.

“Ushijima?” Shouyou asks again and Ushijima groans, head spinning. Why won’t he just go away? “I was gonna ask you if you wanted to watch something with me, but you don’t sound good… are you okay?”

Ushijima thinks for a moment, tears pricking in his eyes as he lets out a choked. “No.” And he hears Shouyou set down his laptop on the bed. “I’m not. Fuck.”

“I’m coming in, okay?” Shouyou says and then, slowly, the handle turns and he steps in. The ground lurches and Ushijima groans low and guttural, like a wounded animal as Shouyou sways before him and he begins to cry, thick, hot tears that drip down his cheeks and don’t stop and Shouyou crouches beside him, rubbing his back gently. “What’s wrong, Ushijima?” he asks. 

Ushijima suddenly can’t find the words. He feels choked by his tears and the imagines feeling of the flowers crawling up his throat again. “Y-You… You’ve got to promise you won’t tell anyone,” Ushijima begs desperately, clinging to the front of Shouyou’s shirt. “Promise. _Promise me_ , Shouyou.”

“I won’t.” Shouyou says softly. “I won’t tell anyone. Please, Ushijima, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I did something bad.” Ushijima rambles, his words tangling on his tongue. “So, so, so, _so bad_.”

Shouyou holds Ushijima gently, looking very out of his depth. “Ushijima, please, _tell me_.”

“I shouldn’t have done it.” Ushijima continues desperately. “But I wanted to, Shouyou, so bad. You can’t tell anyone. If you tell someone I’m not going to be friends with you anymore, because you promised me.” 

Shouyou begins to tremble. “ _Tell me_.” He repeats.

Ushijima’s chest heaves. “I took pills Shouyou, I stole them, I just wanted everything to stop.” He says and Shouyou’s eyes widen, his grip slackening on Ushijima. “I kept feeling the flowers, I kept seeing Tendou, and I couldn’t feel anything else. It felt like I was drowning.”

“What did you take?” Shouyou asks and Ushijima moans.

“I don’t know.” He says.

“What did you do with the bottles?” He asks and Ushijima points with a flimsy hand at the bin and Shouyou dives for it, digging amongst the trash for the three orange bottles, clutching them in his hands. “Kenma’s anti-anxiety meds, Suga’s antidepressants and Tooru’s sleeping pills? Ushijima…” He breathes, looking back to Ushijima. “These are really high dosage. What were you thinking?”

Ushijima closes his eyes and leans his hot skin against the cold ceramic of the toilet. “That I wanted to die.” He croaks. “That I didn’t want to live. That I didn’t want to see the flowers anymore, that I wanted to feel something." 

Shouyou looks pained as he drops the bottles and crawls back to Ushijima, gripping him firmly by the shoulders. “You should’ve told me, I could’ve helped.” He says and Ushijima shakes his head miserably. “Ushijima… please…” 

Ushijima stops. “I’m going to throw up,” he says and Shouyou turns him around just in time for him to be sick into the toilet. He groans. “It burns. Why does it burn?”

Shouyou rubs his back. “I don’t think your stomach is reacting well with the pills.” He says. “Ushijima, I need to get Suga or Takeda.”

Ushijima immediately starts to panic. “No! Don’t do that!” He begs, tears filling his eyes once more. “Please, please. I don’t want to stay here for longer. I don’t want to stay here, I’m discharged in two days, please.”

“If I don’t do anything, you might die, Wakatoshi.” Shouyou says seriously.

“Then let me.” He says and Shouyou’s face crumbles. “Just don’t tell Takeda!”

He rubs Ushijima’s back once more before he stands. “I need to get Takeda.” He says and he dashes out of the room to the sound of Ushijima’s panicked sobbing.

Ushijima lets out a scream of a dying animal and falls against the wall, his head in his hands as he sobs, the entire act shaking his entire body. Outside in the corridor, he hears the footsteps of the other residents, someone of the faint chatter and panicked conversation and then Takeda, two paramedics, and a doctor Ushijima’s never seen before burst into the bathroom. Takeda bends down to pick up the pill bottles and reads the labels before he tucks them into his pockets, as the strange doctor bends in front of Ushijima and the paramedics busy themselves around him, hooking him up to all sorts of machines.

“Hey, Ushijima.” He says and Ushijima feels his voice fading in an out like bad phone reception when a car’s going through a tunnel. “Your friend told us you took a lot of pills, is that right?” He asks and Ushijima nods shortly. “Okay. Now. I’m just gonna ask you a few questions, okay?" 

Ushijima lurches over and the doctor steadies him by putting his hands on Ushijima’s shoulders. “I shouldn’t have done it.” He repeats through his sobs. “But I wanted to.” 

“I know.” The doctor says. “But we’re going to get you help, okay? We’ll help you and make sure you never feel like you want to so it again.”

Ushijima nods numbly and clutches at his throat. “It burns.” He says. 

“Did you throw up?” He asks and Ushijima nods. “That’ll be why.”

Ushijima sobs again. “I’m sorry.” He cries, and, from the corner of his eye he can see Shouyou, watching with wide, horrified eyes before Suga tugs him away.

“It’s okay now.” The doctor says. “I just need you to answer a couple of questions for me, can you do that?” he asks and when Ushijima nods, he smiles. “Good. What’s your name?" 

Ushijima sucks in a deep breath. “Ushijima Wakatoshi.” He manages.

“What school do you go to?”

“Sh… Shiratoriz-zawa.” He chokes and the doctor rubs his back.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Do you need glasses, Ushijima?” He asks. 

Ushijima shakes his head and the doctor nods and holds up his hand, folding away some of his fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?” He asks and Ushijima blinks. The fingers swim before him, multiplying and extremely blurry and Ushijima is suddenly aware of how hard it is to keep his eyes open, so he closes them. 

“Hmmm…” Ushijima hums, and he thinks it wouldn’t be too bad to fall sleep now.

“Ushijima.” The doctor says. “I need you to keep your eyes open and answer me. We know you took four bottles of high dosage pills. None of them are toxic enough to kill you.” Ushijima groans and the doctor turns. “Takeda, you need to get the gurney, we’re going to transfer him to A&E for now, just until the pills wear off, and then you need to do an evaluation.” He says and then he turns to Ushijima, holding his head up gently.

“Ushijima, the paramedics are going to help you up onto a bed, try to stay awake for us, okay?” He says and Ushijima nods, barely a dip of his head as the paramedics help him up and out of the bathroom, onto a bed.

The minute he lies down, his entire body feels like lead, and he’s vaguely aware of a hand squeezing his own before everything goes fuzzy and he’s gone, stuck in a haze of overwhelming medication and artificial lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever feel like committing suicide, please visit [ this site ](http://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines) and find the telephone number for your country.
> 
> tumblr: [ cherry-kirsch ](cherry-kirsch.tumblr.com) || twitter: [ cherriwrites ](https://twitter.com/cherriwrites)


	4. a single sweet briar

Ushijima wakes, bleary and disorientated, to Tooru at his bedside table, curled up into a plastic chair reading. He doesn’t look up when Ushijima groans, his head pounding, and tugs his bedcovers over his head to block out the light in the room, but he does get up to close the blinds before resuming his previous position.  
He watches Tooru for a while, finding something calming in the way Tooru twirls his hair around his finger and flips the page every so often. He realises that Tooru’s reading a food magazine at the same time that he looks up and meets Ushijima’s eye. Tooru smiles and closes his magazine, resting it on his lap as he leans closer to him. 

“Welcome to the land of the living, Ushiwaka.” Tooru says, leaning across to poke him in the shoulder. “How are you feeling?” He asks, and it sounds worried.

Ushijima lifts a hand up to his forehead, rubbing is temple. “My head hurts.” He says, and his throat burns. “My throat hurts. Everything hurts.” He finishes and Tooru nods and lifts a glass of water from the table beside him, holding it to Ushijima’s lips so he can drink.

“I know.” Tooru says as he leans back and places the glass back on the table. “Taking that many pills will do that to you. You really scared us, y’know?”

Ushijima nods and puts his arm over his eyes, sighing softly. “I’m sorry.” He says.

Tooru shrugs, and shuffles a little in his seat. “Don’t apologize.” Tooru tells him. “Just get better.”

“Okay.” Ushijima agrees.

Tooru eyes him. “Aren’t you gonna ask about Shrimpy?” He asks. “He was the one that found you. He’s been sleeping with Kenma since yesterday evening.”

“I was trying not to think about it.” Ushijima says, grimacing. “I didn’t expect him to come and fine me.” 

“But you wanted him to.” Tooru says and Ushijima stops, moves his arm from his eyes to watch Tooru, who peers down at him rather seriously. “When you do stuff like that, you always hope that someone comes and finds you before you go through with it. When someone does, you realise that you shouldn’t have done that stuff.”

Ushijima opens his mouth to say something, can’t find the words and closes his mouth again. He wants to question Tooru about it, but he doesn’t. He thinks. “Yeah.” He says finally. “I guess.”

Tooru smiles again and stands up. “You should get some more rest.” He says, placing the magazine on the table. “I’m going to tell Ukai that you woke up.”

As Tooru turns to leave, Ushijima catches his wrist and stops him. Tooru looks back at him curiously and Ushijima feels like he’s five as he holds onto his fingers. “Could… could you stay?” He asks quietly and Tooru’s look of confusion melts into something soft. “Please.” He adds and Tooru settles himself back into his seat with a slight nod.                

“Okay.” He says. “I will.” 

* * *

The next time he wakes, it is to the sound of something playing loudly in his ears. He groans and tries to move away from it, only for it to follow him, intrusive and blaring, and, he opens his eyes to the sight of a laptop shoved right up to his face and the overwhelming feeling that he’s about to fall off his bed.  
Which he is, because Shouyou is lying beside him spread out like a starfish, staring intently at the screen in front of him. He shuffles back onto his bed and sinks back down into the covers, and Shouyou barely looks up at him, so he turns back to the laptop, rests his head on Shouyou’s shoulder and begins to watch.

It’s an episode of Ex-Aid, at least he thinks so judging by the sheer amount of lab coats and bright colours that assault his vision. A quick glance at Shouyou confirms his suspicions; he’s enjoying himself thoroughly, humming along to the songs and making excited noises when the show episode begins to get more exciting, and Ushijima is pleased.

“Emu’s a dumbass.” Ushijima croaks and Shouyou almost jumps out of his skin, the laptop sliding off his laptop and clattering on the floor. “Careful, that’s your laptop.” He says with a light chuckle as Shouyou flushes red, jumps off the bed and picks up the laptop, dusting it off before setting it on Ushijima’s lap. 

“You scared me.” Shouyou says, pouting. “You were sleeping like the dead.”

Ushijima shrugs and closes the laptop lid, placing it on the bedside table. “The theme music woke me up.” He says. “Ex-Aid, huh? How fitting.”

Shouyou nods quickly, grinning as he turns and pulls a doctor’s jacket from the chair and slips a pair of glasses onto his nose, shooting Ushijima a wink and a peace sign. “I’m Hinata Shouyou, here to return your smile at all costs.” He says and Ushijima laughs so hard his ribs hurt as Shouyou pouts at him, trying not to smile along as well. “What?” He asks in a sing song voice. ‘What is it Wakatoshi? What’s funny? Tell me!”

“You.” Ushijima says as his laughter quietens to a chuckle, pushing hair back from his face as he gazes at Shouyou. “You’re so cute. It’s funny.”

The words fill the air between them and expand, Shouyou’s eyes wide, his mouth falling slightly open at Ushijima’s words—Ushijima, however, just looks resolutely forwards, a bright blush crawling up his neck and ears in embarrassment. Ushijima breaks the tension with a cough.

“Where’d you get the coat?” Ushijima asks, leaning over to Shouyou to toy with the sleeve. “And the glasses?” 

Shouyou shakes himself from his shock, pink dusting his cheeks still, and smiles down at Ushijima. “Ukai leant me the lab coat and these are Tooru’s.” He says, allowing his fingers to graze over the frame. “He doesn’t even need them. The lenses are glass.”

“Why does he have them then?” Ushijima asks, and Shouyou shrugs.

“I dunno,” Shouyou says. “I never asked.” 

Ushijima nods and looks down at his hands, suddenly very aware of the fact that Shouyou isn’t looking him in the eye, or even at him, he seems to be looking past him but in his direction. Shouyou’s smile wobbles as he steps backwards and settles awkwardly into the chair beside the bed, his hands reaching for the laptop.

“Do you want to watch more Ex-Aid?” He asks, his voice too loud in Ushijima’s ears as he rests the laptop on his knees. “We can start from the beginning of the episode. Or we could watch a different series. Build? Ghost? You get special treatment so you can pick.” Shouyou offers with a not-quite-right smile as he opens the laptop lid.

Ushijima reaches out to close it, and Shouyou’s hands immediately snap to his sides, flinching way from Ushijima as if he’d been burned. Ushijima pretends not to notice as he takes the laptop from Shouyou and puts it back on the bedside table.

Shouyou looks down at his feet, scuffing his trainers on the floor. “Shouyou.” Ushijima says, and Shouyou’s head snaps to him, his eyes flickering between looking him in the eye and looking at his ear. “I’m sorry. I must’ve scared you.”

Immediately, Shouyou shakes his head. “No.” He says too quickly. 

“I put you in a really awkward place.” Ushijima continues, looking at Shouyou solemnly before he looks away and out of the window. “I’m sorry to have caused you trouble. I… didn’t want you to see me like that. I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” 

Shouyou looks unsure. “It’s not your fault.” He says quietly. “Don’t apologise.”

A feeling of discomfort settles squarely in Ushijima’s chest. “Please accept my apology.” He says. “Nobody should have seen me in that state. And I did something that is…” His words trail off at the sight of Shouyou shaking his head.

“No.” Shouyou says firmly. “I won’t let you apologise.” 

“Shouyou, please…” Ushijima begs. “I need to.”

Shouyou shakes his head again. “You don’t.” He says, his eyes finally meeting Ushijima’s. “You tried to kill yourself, so what? You don’t need to apologise for that. You don’t need to do anything but get the help to start feeling better.” He says and the words pierce straight through Ushijima’s heart, ‘ _kill yourself_ ’ reverberating around his skull like the ring of a gong.

Ushijima sighs, pressing a hand over his eyes. “Shouyou…” He says.

“Don’t you dare apologise!” Shouyou says, the volume of his voice rivalling to cover Ushijima’s. “Don’t!” 

“I need to.” Ushijima pleads, his voice getting lost in Shouyou’s as he begins to drone out Ushijima’s words by repeating ‘ _la la la_ ’ over and over until Ushijima finds himself squeezing his eyes shut whenever Shouyou’s volume increases. “Shouyou, please, I need to do this. Please.”

Shouyou stands up so quickly, his chair creating a horrifying squeak that makes Ushijima flinch. “Don’t apologise to me.” He shouts and Ushijima falls silent. “Apologise to Tooru and Takeda all you want, because I know it makes you feel better. But don’t you dare try to apologise to me.”

“What do you want me to do then?!” Ushijima screams back, anger rising up his throat like acid. “What do you want me to do?”

“Let me help you!” Shouyou screams back. “Let me help you not feel like you want to end it all. Talk to me about everything and everything. Trust me. Let me be your friend, Wakatoshi.” He finishes, his chest heaving before he reaches out to take Ushijima’s hand, flinching back when the door slides open and Ukai steps through.

Ukai peers between Shouyou and Ushijima in concern. “Is everything okay in here?” He asks. “I heard shouting.”

Shouyou presses his lips into a thin line and looks to Ukai. “Yeah, we’re just fine.” He says, but by the tone of his voice, he means the opposite. “I was just leaving, Doctor.” He says, and he gathers the laptop before he briskly exits the room, slamming the door behind him.

Ukai watches him go before settling into the seat beside Ushijima’s bed, his hands folded over his clipboard. “Shouyou wasn’t getting on at you, was he?” He asks and Ushijima shakes his head. “This isn’t the first time he’s had a shouting match with someone inside a hospital room.”

“Oh.” Ushijima says, his curiosity piquing but dissolving the minute Ukai lifts his clipboard from his lap.

“Are you feeling better?” Ukai asks him. “Any pains at all? Head ache? Stomach ache?”

Ushijima shakes his head then pauses. “I had a head ache earlier, but I drank some water and slept it off.” He says and Ukai nods, pleased and jots that down on his notepad. 

“It doesn’t seem there’s any lasting damage.” He says, tapping his pen against the paper. “We did have you hooked up to a heart monitor for a while, just to make sure you weren’t going into shock, but you were fine. And you haven’t thrown up since waking, have you?”

Again, Ushijima shakes his head. “No.” He says.

“Then, physically, you seem to be just fine.” Ukai says before he peers at Ushijima more intently. “Now, I have a couple of questions for you, could you answer them?” He asks.

Ushijima nods slowly. “Sure.” He says quietly.

“Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness prior to contracting Hanahaki Disease?” He asks swiftly and the sheer abruptness of it catches Ushijima off guard.

Almost hesitantly, he shakes his head. “No, I haven’t.” 

“Have you taken any medication for pain, viral or bacterial infections, behavioural disorders or mental illness prescribed by a doctor before contracting Hanahaki Disease?” Ukai asks and this time Ushijima is more prepared with a shake of his head.

“No.”

“Have you experienced symptoms of depression or anxiety following your Hanahaki Extraction Surgery?”

Ushijima hesitates. “Yes.” He says. 

“Have you experienced the following symptoms following your extraction surgery; amnesia of an experience, intrusive thoughts and recollections of an event, decreased impulse control, social isolation, and/or impaired communication skills.” Ukai asks, and Ushijima quickly finds himself overwhelmed by the list before he nods numbly.

“Yeah, I guess.” He mumbles, feeling a little lost. “I think.”

Ukai nods in understanding and stands up, tucking his clipboard under his arm. “Thank you for answering my questions, Ushijima.” He says and Ushijima nods again. “You’ve been discharged, so Suga will be along shortly to escort you back to the Hanahaki ward.” 

“Okay.” Ushijima says.

“Oh,” Ukai says as he points to the windowsill. “A friend from outside the hospital came to see you while you were unconscious. He left you flowers, you should take them back to your dorm with you.” He says before he departs with a smile and a small bow, closing the door softly behind him.

Ushijima turns to look at the flowers on the windowsill and turns away quickly to throw up into the bin beside his bed. 

* * *

Ushijima’s dorm doesn’t have a door anymore.

Not even on the bathroom. Instead, he has a shower curtain. It doesn’t bother him that much, and he settles back into his bed, choosing not to pay the fact that the keys for his window have been removed any mind, not to mention he can’t find his shaving razor. He had expected as much.   
Suga, at least, acts normally towards him, as well as Tooru. The brunet is right back to flirting with him; but it doesn’t annoy him as much as it used to. Shouyou, on the other hand, seems to be avoiding him.

He treks through the rest of the day in a daze, swarmed by Suga and Tooru talking at him without expecting answer, which he appreciates, and being tugged from place to place and given things to occupy him. Tooru incorporates him into his workout routine for an hour, Suga takes him to the art therapy room just to draw and throw paint at paper, they both drag him to lunch, and then they play video games until dinner.

Shouyou sits at a different table with Kenma, and Ushijima notices that both he and Kenma are plugged into their music players, not talking but enjoying each other’s company. In an instant, Ushijima is reminded of the time they spent in each other’s room watching television in comfortable silence, and his heart aches.

Tooru invites him and Suga to his bedroom so he can paint their nails and wear face masks, and Tooru lets Ushijima use his favourite charcoal and green tea clay mask—Suga applies it as Tooru paints his nails gold, both dissolving into peals of laughter when Ushijima finds himself unable to move his face. Suga helps him scrub it off, and Ushijima treks back to his dorm.

He finds the curtain of his room ajar and steps through, catching Shouyou just as h is about to lay the laptop back on his bed.

“Hey.” Ushijima says and Shouyou jumps in fright, though, thankfully, he doesn’t drop the laptop this time. “What’s up?”

Shouyou turns slowly to him, thrusting the laptop out for him to take. “I took your laptop when I stormed away this morning.” He says, his voice nothing more than a mumble. “I shouldn’t have done that, so I came to return it.” He pauses. “That’s all.”

Ushijima shrugs. “You can have it.” He says.

“No.” Shouyou says, stepping forward to shove it into Ushijima’s chest. “Take it back.”

“I gave it to you.” Ushijima says, forcing it back into Shouyou’s arms. “It’s yours now.”

Shouyou shakes his head. “I don’t want it.”

Ushijima falters, an eyebrow raising in surprise. “Why?” he asks.

“Because you only gave it me because you were going to kill yourself.” Shouyou says a little more firmly that Ushijima thinks he intends, an Ushijima falters, allowing Shouyou to press it into his arms. “I just wanted to return it. So, I’ll be going now.” He says, moving around Ushijima to head to the curtain.

Ushijima recovers quickly and drops the laptop to catch Shouyou’s wrist, hardly caring when his laptop clatters to the floor. “Don’t go.” Ushijima says as Shouyou stares at him. “Stay… please?” He asks, releasing Shouyou’s hand as if it were hot coals when he nods slowly in assent.

Shouyou rubs his wrist carefully, looking down at his feet. He’s wearing Super Sentai socks, Ushijima notices. “I’m sorry,” Shouyou says, breaking Ushijima from his train of thought. “For yelling at you, I mean. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay.” Ushijima says, perching on the edge of his bed. “It was for the best, really. I didn’t mean to make you so mad.” 

Shouyou chuckles at that, slowly crossing the space between them to sit beside him on the bed. “I wasn’t mad at you, if you’re worried about that.” He says softly. “You just reminded me of someone that I knew. He tried to kill himself too… he almost didn’t make it, and he kept apologising all the time too.”

Ushijima claps his hands together. “I’m sorry that happened.” He says and Shouyou shakes his head.

“He’s better now.” Shouyou says with a small smile. “He has friends and is working on getting better. Just like you are, I hope.” He adds, nudging Ushijima’s shoulder with his own, causing Ushijima to chuckle. 

“I want to get better.” Ushijima says suddenly, and very sincerely.

Shouyou smiles up at him. “I’m glad.” He says. “It’s easier to get better when you fully want to. When you don’t want to, it’s harder. You’re taking a step.”

“Big step.” Ushijima agrees with a nod.

“A big step in the right direction.” Shouyou says, resting his head against Ushijima’s shoulder. “Besides, everyone here will be here to help you along the way. Me, Suga, Tooru, Kenma, Kei, even if he doesn’t want to.” Ushijima chuckles at that and Shouyou smiles fondly. “You’re always going to have people.”

“I like having people.” Ushijima tells him. “It’s better than having no one.”

“It always is.” Shouyou agrees.

They sit together in silence for what seems like eons, breathing in each other’s company. Ushijima looks down at Shouyou, allows his arm to wrap around Shouyou’s shoulders and tug him a little closer, to which Shouyou replies by wrapping his arms around Ushijima’s torso. He smooths back Shouyou’s hair and it is then that Shouyou peers curiously up at him, head tilted slightly to the side and eyes wide with curiosity.

Ushijima cups Shouyou’s face with his hands and plants a lingering kiss against his lips.

“Wow.” Shouyou mumbles, half-dazed, as Ushijima draws back.

Ushijima looks down at him. “I like you.” He says, and he means it.

Shouyou darts away so quickly he headbutts Ushijima in the nose, causing him to yelp in pain and clutch at his face as Shouyou yelps right back and backs as far away from Ushijima as he can.

“I’m sorry,” Shouyou breathes, panicked and flustered, a pink blush crawling across his face. “I…”

“Shou…” Ushijima says quickly. “I—”

Shouyou cuts him off quickly with, “I gotta go.”, and darts out of the door before Ushijima can say another word. 

Ushijima stares at the fluttering curtain before falling back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, a feeling of nervousness settling in his chest. He shouldn’t have said that he liked Shouyou— But he _kissed_ Shouyou, and that makes him feel electric.

* * *

He is called to Takeda’s office the next morning. 

Takeda talks him through what his answers mean, using serious words like ‘ _trauma_ ’ and ‘ _PTSD_ ’ that get lost in the swirl of the ever-moving thoughts in his mind. He keeps thinking of Shouyou, and the way it felt to kiss him, and the way Shouyou’s hair felt in his fingers, and how he was so warm beneath him. Every pore of his being feels filled with sunshine, and he feels drunk on the thought of the kiss, the thought of maybe getting to do it again.

He nods in all the right places for Takeda, mumbles half-answers and agrees to attend one-on-one therapy with a professional, agrees to one month minimum of in-patient on the ward. He leaves the office in a daze, goes to breakfast and sits next to Suga, and hums and nods when Suga talks to him. But he doesn’t take it in.

Shouyou is as brilliant as the sun, and he is a flower, drinking in his sunlight, hungering for his attention.

He is broken from his daze by Tooru snapping his fingers in front of his face. He shakes his head and looks to him. “Have you been listen to a word I said?” he asks, and he pouts when Ushijima looks at him blankly. “Oh, boo, maybe I’ll just have to admit that I’m second fiddle to Chibi…” He sighs. 

“Sorry,” Ushijima apologizes, tearing his gaze from Shouyou. “What were you saying?”

“It’s visiting day.” Tooru says triumphantly. “Which means you and I can hang out while everyone gets sappy with their family and significant others.” He explains. “What do you say, Ushiwaka?”

Ushijima nods, a smiling curving the corners of his lips. “Sounds good.”

Tooru grins and nudges Ushijima with an elbow. “I got you to smile, finally.” He says before his smile turns into a serious look. “Or are you thinking of Chibi?” He asks teasingly.

Ushijima just smiles and turns back to his oatmeal.

He and Tooru make their way from the dining area to Tooru’s room and settle in to flicking through magazines, watching funny YouTube videos and chatting aimlessly. He doesn’t tell Tooru about the kiss, he keeps that as a secret, something just for himself and close to his heart; after all, he doesn’t know what Shouyou thinks yet. He feels lighter than air, and he hopes that Shouyou feels the same.

“You’re spacing out again.” Tooru says as Ushijima snaps back to Earth. “I asked you which colour between blue and purple and you said green.” He grimaces as he turns back to the magazine. “Green isn’t even my colour, Ushiwaka, it makes me look like an olive.”

Ushijima snorts, thumbing through an old sports magazine. “I don’t think that’s right.” He says and Tooru grumbles, before he lifts the magazine towards Tooru. “Why are all the faces cut out of this?” He asks.

“Because they can play sports and I can’t.” Tooru says, not even glancing in the magazine’s direction. “They don’t have Hanahaki. And if they did, theirs doesn’t come back. They get to live in the outside world and I’m stuck in the hospital.” Tooru spits bitterly. “I hate being prodded at like cattle. I feel like an alien.”

Ushijima hums sympathetically. “That doesn’t sound fun.” He says. “How come your Hanahaki comes back?” he asks.

Tooru shrugs. “If I knew I’d have gotten rid of it myself now.” He says. “I did love someone once, but surgery removes feelings for them, right? It’s not fair how mine keeps coming back. But at least I haven’t had an attack in a week or two.”

“Attack?” Ushijima asks.

“I start coughing up flowers and petals everywhere, and it doesn’t stop until I take my suppressors.” Tooru explains. “I don’t know what triggers it.”

Ushijima nods and leans back in to read his magazine. “I see.” He says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Tooru tells him. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

A knock on the door breaks them both from their conversation. They exchange a look, all too familiar with anyone and everyone just bursting into their rooms without invitation, and slowly Tooru gets up, crosses to his door and opens it wide, freezing in his place for a moment before he slams it shut in a panic and scurries into the bathroom.

“Tooru?” Ushijima asks.

“Don’t open the door!” Tooru manages through his panicked breathing. “It’s a demon!”

Ushijima frowns. “Demon?” He asks.

It is then that someone pounds heavily on the door. “Tooru, let me in!” A voice calls, cursing. “Kurokawa, I swear to god!”. Tooru just whimpers and presses his hands over his ears, begging Ushijima quietly not to open the door as he moves towards it.

“Please, Toshi!” Tooru pleads, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. “Don’t. Please." 

“I have to open the door to tell him to go away.” Ushijima says and Tooru whimpers as Ushijima opens the door.

Ushijima meets the face of a man a little shorter than he is, with bronzed skin, an angry-looking face and spiky black hair. He peers up at Ushijima and his face softens slightly. “Can I come in?” he asks. “I came to see Tooru, I only want to see him for a minute—”

“Tooru doesn’t want to see you.” Ushijima says firmly. “I can’t let you in, I’m sorry.” 

The man’s face falls further, plunging into the realm of looking almost desperate. “I know he doesn’t want to see me,” he says and Ushijima’s eyebrow raises. “But we need to talk. It took me months to find him here—”

“He didn’t tell you?” Ushijima asks, aghast.

Tooru whines at him from his place on the bathroom floor. “Stop fraternizing with the _enemy_ , Ushiwaka!” He says and the man’s face in front of Ushijima’s turns into one of stormy anger.

“Enemy?” he repeats, pushing past Ushijima before he can stop him and marching into the bathroom. “Is that what I am now? An enemy? I thought I was your best friend, Tooru.”

Tooru slams the door in his former best friend’s face. “Best friends don’t abandon each other, Hajime.” He says.

Hajime slams his hand against the door, fumbling with the door handle only to find it locked. “I didn’t abandon you, Tooru. I had to go away on that camp, I had no choice, and we both know it.” 

“You went without me.” Tooru says, his voice revealing how truly close he is to crying. “I had my first bout of Hanahaki and you went without me. You could’ve just not gone; it wasn’t like they were forcing you. You’re such an idiot, and I hate you.” Tooru manages before he dissolves into sobs.

“I think you’re overreacting a little, Tooru.” Hajime says and Tooru gasps from behind the door, unlocking it to look Hajime in the eye.

“I’m overreacting?” He repeats, jabbing Hajime in the middle of his chest. “What about you, huh? What did you do?” He asks, jabbing harder as Hajime squeezes his eyes shut, looking pained as he sighs.

“Tooru—”

“You said you were going to stay with me,” Tooru snaps, cutting Hajime off. “You said you would be there when I woke up in the hospital. But you weren’t, and I had to find out from one of our teammates who came to visit two days later. I would have accepted a note, maybe you telling the nurse to tell me.” He says, leaning forward to smack Hajime in the middle of his chest. “But the fact you didn’t tell anyone made me really mad.”

Hajime glares at him. “But you didn’t tell me when you left.” He retorts. “I had to find out from Yahaba. You abandoned me.”

Tooru lets out an outraged gasp. “You can’t compare that to what you did.” He snaps. “Because I left to get away from you and to get better; and the worst thing was that you pretended like it never happened.”

“To get away from me?” Hajime repeats, stunned.

Tooru clenches his hands into fists. “I hate you.” Tooru says bitterly. “Please, Hajime, just leave." 

“Why didn’t you tell me your Hanahaki keeps coming back?” Hajime asks softly and Tooru goes still, his eyes widening. “Why does it keep coming back? Are you… in love with someone?”

Tooru blinks at him. “How did you—”

“Yahaba.” Hajime says in way of explanation and Tooru glares. “How—” 

“I don’t know, okay?” Tooru snaps in exasperation. “I don’t know why it keeps coming back. I don’t want it to. I’ve had five Hanahaki Removal Surgeries, any love I’ve had for anybody should be gone by now.” He says.

Hajime frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Well done genius.” Tooru tells him.

As Tooru opens his mouth to say something else, he lets out a gasping cough, clasping his hands over his mouth as he begins to cough violently. He sways on his feet and Hajime darts forward to catch Tooru before he falls backwards and smacks his head on the floor, he lowers Tooru to the floor and turns him on his side, rubbing Tooru’s back.  
Ushijima watches, stunned, from the doorway as Hajime cradles Tooru during his coughing fit. Tooru struggles away from Hajime and to the sink, gripping the porcelain so tightly his knuckles go white as he pulls himself up and retches into it.

Hajime stands up and rubs Tooru’s back. “Let it out.” He says quietly. “It’s okay.”

Tooru begins to cry again, his voice coming out choked through his coughing. “Ha… Ha-j… j-ime…” He says and Hajime just pushes his hair back from his face and secures it with a hair tie lying on the counter. “H… H-hurts…”

“I know.” Hajime says soothingly.

Tooru hacks more violently into the sink, and Ushijima’s eyes widen as scarlet blood splatters from Tooru’s lips and into the sink. He backs up, against the frame of the door, his chest heaving as he watches Tooru and Hajime. The moment the first petal and full flower head passes through his lips, Ushijima flees, hardly realising he’s outside his own room until he slumps against the wall.

He sits with his head in his hands, trying to steady his breathing until the toe of someone’s shoes nudge his leg, and he looks up, lighting up when he notices Shouyou. “Shouyou.” He says, and Shouyou offers him a nervous smile. “What’s up.”

“I wanted to talk to you.” Shouyou says. “About…” He trails off, unsure.

“The kiss?” Ushijima asks, and he goes bright red, nodding. “Okay, what about it?”

Shouyou looks down at his feet. “The kiss was… nice.” Shouyou says quietly. “But you said you liked me… did you mean that?” He asks and Ushijima considers this before nodding. 

“Yes.” He says. “I did.”

“I… think we should just be friends.” Shouyou says. 

Almost instantaneously, it feels like Ushijima’s entire world is crumbling around him. “What?” he asks, already sinking into a daze of loathing and regret and embarrassment.

“It’s not good to like people on hospital, because you’ll wind up getting hurt.” Shouyou says, biting his lip. “I’m sorry, Ushijima, I really am. But it’s for the best. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Ushijima nods along, not really soaking in Shouyou’s words. “Okay.” Ushijima replies.

“I don’t want you to like me just because I’m here.” Shouyou adds quickly. “Like someone who means something to you. Like someone who isn’t… nevermind. I’m sorry, Ushijima.” He finishes before he scurries off, his head in his hands.

The bile begins rising up Ushijima’s throat instantly, and he staggers into his room, pushing aside the curtain to his bathroom just in time to throw up into the toilet. Once he’s done heaving, he flushes the toilet and cleans out his mouth with mouthwash, just after he spits it out, he coughs. He writes it off as nothing and coughs again. And again.  
He quickly finds himself hacking into the sink, blood splattering into the sink before his chest heaves and he finally coughs up a small lump covered in blood. Ushijima frowns and runs it under the tap, trying to wash it down the sink, only for his hands to falter.

The blood washes away to reveal yellow and Ushijima seizes up. His chest heaving as his heartrate picks up. 

 _I must’ve swallowed paper or something_ , Ushijima thinks desperately, trying to calm himself down. _It’s nothing_.

He washes the yellow down the sink without a second thought and leaves to see Tooru, his heart only sinking further when he sees Tooru being wheeled away on a gurney, Hajime clasping his hand. He exchanges a look with Suga, who quickly moves to join his side.

“It’s a shame,” Suga says softly. “He always loves Hajime. I hope he’ll be okay now.”

Ushijima mutters an agreement and tries to swallow down the lump that’s slowly rising up his throat, the dread threatening to swallow him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: [ cherry-kirsch ](cherry-kirsch.tumblr.com) || twitter: [ cherriwrites ](https://twitter.com/cherriwrites)


	5. a crown of anemone

When Ushijima goes to visit Tooru in the hospital, a sickening feeling is already burrowing itself into his stomach and dread fills his mouth and makes his tongue heavy with a metallic taste. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and winces, sucking gently on the tender flesh—he must’ve chewed his bottom lip too hard. He doesn’t bring flowers, but he does bring Tooru his favourite facemask and hair clips. 

He pushes open the door and greets Hajime with a terse smile as he allows it to close gently behind him.

Hajime peers at him with eyes ringed in purple, and offers him an exhausted upturn of his lips before his gaze drifts back to Tooru. Ushijima places the facemask and hairclips onto the bedside table and hovers, unsure, by Tooru’s bedside, watching as Tooru’s chest rises and falls, his face peaceful in sleep.

“Has he had surgery?” Ushijima asks, flinching when he realises how loud his voice sounds.

Hajime shakes his head and strokes his thumb over Tooru’s knuckle. “No.” He says. “Too dangerous.”

Ushijima nods. “I see.”

Hajime nods back at him and they lapse into a strangely awkward silence.

“Did…” Hajime begins, and Ushijima’s eyes snap to Hajime’s hunched figure. “Did Tooru ever talk about me to you?” He asks.

“No.” Ushijima replies, frowning slightly when Hajime looks downcast. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine.” Hajime says, forcing a smile onto his face. “Nothing you could do about it.”

Ushijima shuffles on his feet, edges a couple of steps towards the door. “I guess not.”

“He’s an idiot,” Hajime says fondly as he looks down at Tooru. “Isn’t he? What an idiot, worrying everyone silly.”

“I don’t know.” Ushijima mutters and Hajime glances over to him curiously. “I think he had a point. I’ve done the same thing, sometimes seeing the person you used to be in love with is too painful and you don’t want to be around them… because… it hurts, y’know, to see them happy when you feel hopeless…” Ushijima tells Hajime, trailing off when he notices Hajime peering at him in shock. Nervously, he raises an eyebrow. “What?”

Hajime squeezes Tooru’s hand. “Do… you think that Tooru is in love with me?” He asks, his voice nothing more than a hushed whisper; as if he doesn’t dare believe it. “Is it my fault that he’s…” He trails off, biting at his lip as he looks down at his and Tooru’s interlocked fingers.

Ushijima considers this carefully. “Well…” He begins, unsure of how lightly to tread in front of Hajime, knowing that any amount of the truth would hurt. “Tooru may have been in love with you—” His heart sinks in his chest when he notices Hajime’s hopeful look. “—But he wouldn’t be anymore. Because of the removal surgery.”

Hajime visibly deflates. “Oh,” he says softly. “I see.”

Hesitantly Ushijima reaches out to rest a hand on Hajime’s shoulder, thankful when he doesn’t shrug the hand off, watching sympathetically as he visibly deflates. “It’s not your fault that he’s like this.” Ushijima tells him but Hajime’s eyes don’t meet his. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. And it’s not Tooru’s fault either.”

Hajime squeezes his eyes shut, his knuckles turning white from the pressure of his grip on Tooru’s hand. “If I’d just told him that I loved him before that stupid game…” Hajime says breathlessly. “If I hadn’t left him to go to that stupid camp. Maybe he wouldn’t have Hanahaki, maybe it wouldn’t keep coming back.”

“Tooru is one of the thirty-two million Japanese people affected by Hanahaki in their lifetime.” Ushijima says and Hajime’s eyes dart to his, wide. “He’s not exactly special in that aspect. None of us are. We’re part of a larger figure.”

Hajime blinks at him. “Thirty-two million?” He repeats. “I… I didn’t think it was that many…”

Ushijima gives him a small smile. “Well, it’s not exactly rare.” He says. “Still, there are some people who face unrequited love flower-less. They don’t cough up petals and buds and flower heads. They hurt, but they carry on, unlike us. Not to mention 25% of Hanahaki patients are diagnosed with additional mental health conditions.” 

“I… see.” Hajime says, swallowing hard as his eyes slip from Ushijima’s and back down to scan over Tooru. There is silence for a minute. “Did you have Hanahaki?” Hajime asks Ushijima carefully.

“I did.” Ushijima says, nodding though Hajime isn’t looking at him.

“Have you recovered without any… side-effects?” Hajime asks quietly. Ushijima shuffles nervously on his feet before Hajime shakes his head. “Nevermind, that’s none of my business—sorry for prying.”

Ushijima shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

Hajime nods slowly and then looks over to the facemask and the clips. “Thanks for bringing them,” Hajime says to him, relieving Ushijima with the change of topic. “Tooru will be happy when he wakes up.” 

“No problem.” Ushijima says, edging towards the door. “You’re going to stay with him?”

Hajime nods, more confidently this time and smiles fondly down at Tooru. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on Kurokawa.” He says, clasping Tooru’s hand tight. “’Sides, I don’t wanna leave him again.”

“Hajime?” Ushijima asks, surprising himself with his forwardness as Hajime looks up to peer at him. “When he wakes up, tell him that you love him. Better late than never.” Hajime smiles at his last sentence and nods. 

“I will.”

Ushijima nods at Hajime and tears open the door, allowing it slam shut behind him before he sprints back to the Hanahaki ward. It’s deserted – everyone must be in the courtyard – and Ushijima is thankful for that as he stumbles into the empty, dark library and curls up amongst the shelves, trying to calm his heart and stop the coughs that begin to wrack his body.

* * *

Takeda stares at Ushijima across his desk and Ushijima stares right back, his fingers tugging on the sleeve of his plaid shirt.

“Ushijima.” Takeda says seriously. 

Ushijima blinks at him. “Doctor Takeda.” He replies, urging him to go on.

“I need you to be honest with me from here on out,” Takeda begins and Ushijima shrinks a little in his seat. “You need to tell me what’s worrying you and what you’re feeling. I want to bring some things up in today’s session, but after that you’re free to talk about whatever you like.” He steeples his fingers, his elbows on the desk, and peers at Ushijima over them. “Is that alright?” 

Slowly, Ushijima nods. “Yeah.” He manages quietly.

Takeda nods. “Okay.” He says. “Could you tell me about how you go brought in for Hanahaki Surgery? Please, start from the beginning.”

Ushijima nods back at him and shuffles back in his seat, slumping over his hands and doing his level best to avoid Takeda’s gaze. “I feel in love with my best friend.” He says quietly. “How cliché. But he was everything; he made me laugh, he had a brilliant smile and the brightest red hair, and I wanted to always stay at his side. But… He didn’t love me.”

Ushijima’s mouth goes dry and he swallows hard. Hyperaware of Takeda’s eyes on him, he swallows the lump caught in his throat and continues.

“I was alright for a while, sad, obviously, but fine. He started dating someone, a girl from his English class, and I started coughing, and I always felt like there was something stuck in my throat. I thought I was getting a cold. Then, one day after volleyball practice, I coughed up a red flower petal and my entire world felt apart in my fingers.” Ushijima continues, looking down at his hands, uncurling his fingers. “People had been kicked school before because they had Hanahaki, and I had to stay—Shiratorizawa was my one-way ticket to being… _someone_ in the volleyball world. So, I kept it a secret and started taking the repressor pills, but I couldn’t do anything once they ran out.” 

Ushijima squeezes his eyes shut, the next scenes flitting back and forth in his head, his heart thudding heavily in his chest.

“I… I lasted… about fourth months, maybe. It could be three. My memory is fuzzy.” He says, his brow creasing in concentration. “I had coughed up a rose head before, but that night when I got home from practice, I locked myself in the bathroom and coughed up an entire rose; stem and thorns and all. I was shocked at first, but then I couldn’t stop coughing, and my throat ripped and I coughed up rose after rose. There was… blood… I think.”

He frowns slightly at the effort of remembering. “By the time my mum came home later, I was unconscious. She unlocked the bathroom and called the ambulance. I was booked in for emergency surgery that evening and I woke up two days later feeling… empty.” He says gently, lifting a hand to rest over the middle of his chest where the surgery scar would be. “I still feel empty.” 

Takeda nods and gives Ushijima a sympathetic smile. “That must have been hard for you to tell me.” He says. “Thank you.”

Ushijima shakes his head. “It’s…” He begins before he shakes his head once more. “I don’t remember anything after coughing up that first rose, nothing really. And I don’t remember the hospital.”

“That’s normal.” Takeda tells him reassuringly. “People who have been traumatised tend to repress some memories around the origin of the trauma.”

The word ‘ _trauma_ ’ causes Ushijima’s eyes to snap up to Takeda’s. “Trauma?” He repeats questioningly, frowning when Takeda nods. “But I’m not… traumatised.” He says, the word foreign and heavy on his tongue. “I’m normal. I’m fine. I’m—” 

“There’s nothing shameful about trauma.” Takeda tells him firmly, interrupting his spiel. “Ushijima, I know it feels like a heavy word, and I know how much you want to be normal and fine, but I promise you that you will feel at least a little better when you recognise this. It may not be immediately, acceptance takes time, but it will come.” 

Ushijima blinks across at Takeda. “Sometimes…” he begins slowly, his voice low and hollow as he reaches up to clasp at his throat. “I can still feel the thorns clawing at my throat, and the petals suffocating me. I have dreams about it, about drowning in an ocean of red rose petals.” He takes in a ragged breath, flinching as he corrects himself. “They’re nightmares.” 

“When do you feel the thorns and the petals?” Takeda asks.

“When everything feel hopeless.” Ushijima replies quietly, pausing to think before he looks at Takeda with a scowl. “I hate that _fucking mural_.” He says, and Takeda rises an eyebrow.

“Why?” 

Ushijima growls, the noise low and guttural in throat as he stands and gestures towards the door, out to the corridor that the mural decorates. “Flowers aren’t _beautiful_ , they shouldn’t be loved. Flowers almost killed everyone here, I don’t understand how everyone loves them so much.” He says before he laughs suddenly and bitterly. “Do you know what Shouyou said about flowers? He _loves_ them, but only the ones he hasn’t coughed up.”

Takeda shrugs. “That’s fair enough.” He says. “But what do you think about the flowers that you haven’t coughed up, Ushijima?”

“Why risk it?” Ushijima asks him with a wide sweeping motion of his hands. “I could love a certain flower and I could fall in love with someone, only to have the flower that I love pass my lips. I’d rather just hate them all. It’s better that way.”

“You can’t hate something forever.” Takeda says, ever the voice of reason.

And Ushijima fucking _hates it_.

“Well,” Ushijima growls, fixing Takeda with a fierce glare. “I sure as hell can try.”

Takeda sighs lightly and rests his head on the knuckle of his hand as he stares at Ushijima. “Do you want to love again, Ushijima?” He asks, and the question is so sudden and abrupt that is shocks Ushijima out of his anger.

“I…” Ushijima says as he blinks at Takeda, unsure. “What?”

“Do you want to love again?” Takeda repeats and Ushijima stares at him before he casts his gaze downwards to his feet.

“What if I cough up flowers?” Ushijima asks in reply. 

Takeda gives him another sympathetic smile and his eyes twinkle as he looks at Ushijima. “Yes,” He says firmly. “But what if you don’t? You wouldn’t be so afraid of loving then.” 

Ushijima frowns down at his shoes. “I’m not afraid of loving.” 

“Then what are you afraid of?” Takeda asks.

And, honestly? Ushijima doesn’t know.

It leaves a hollow feeling in his chest as he collapses back into his seat, his head pressed firmly into his hands, his chest heaving as he struggles desperately to choke down tears and the sobs threatening to overcome him and wrack his body with the force of an earthquake. Thoughts flit in and out of his mind, lost in the crescendo of panic, static and hopelessness that fills his head, worming their way into the forefront of his mind and lingering for a moment before they disappear into the fog, no matter how much Ushijima tries to grasp onto them; they just slip through his fingers and fall way like water, crumbling into sand at the slightest pressure.

Ushijima tangles his fingers in his hair and heaves one, twice, three times before he peers up at Takeda desperately, his eyes wide and his knuckles white.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He says, his mouth dry and his tongue like sand. “And there’s something wrong with me. I know there is, my head… it isn’t right. I feel broken.”

“You’re not broken.” Takeda assures him firmly. “You’re not something that needs fixed.” 

“What am I then?” Ushijima asks quietly as he squeezes his eyes shut.

“You’re like a little kid learning to walk.” Takeda says. “You just need a little bit of a helping hand and support with the next few steps before you can walk on your own. How does that sound?” He asks and Ushijima peers at him. “Do you want help, Ushijima?”

Then, slowly, Ushijima nods.

* * * 

Ushijima wakes to Tooru shaking him vigorously.

Tooru is standing over him wearing a brilliant grin, his hair neatly combed and his eyes sparkling. Ushijima assumes that he looks like he must’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, scowling and with his eyes bleary with sleep. Tooru doesn’t look fazed and smiles harder.

“Come on, Ushiwaka!” Tooru says, shaking Ushijima by his shoulders. “Up, up, up! It’s time for your initiation.”

Ushijima blinks at him. “What.” He asks blankly.

Tooru rolls his eyes. “Initiation, dummy.” He says. “You gotta get up!” 

Ushijima checks his phone, groans and falls back into bed, rolling over and away from Tooru as he pulls the covers over his head. “Go away, Tooru, it’s like three in the morning.” He grumbles, allowing his eyes to fall shut. “Can’t we do this initiation at a more reasonable hour? Say, midday?”

“Nope!” Tooru says before he pounces onto Ushijima’s back, successfully winding him. “Get up and I’ll give you a kiss.” 

“Oh,” Ushijima grumbles, the twinge of sarcasm heavy on his tongue. “I’m so convinced!”

He hears Tooru huff and get up off his back. “Ushiwaka if you don’t comply I’m going have to resort to extreme measures!” Tooru warns lowly and Ushijima just buries himself further into his covers.

Ushijima groans loudly again. “Leave me alone!” He says.

For a minute, there is deathly silence, and Ushijima thinks Tooru finally got the message and left. But then he hears a sigh.

“Suga, Akaashi,” He hears Tooru say. “ _Grab him_.”

Immediately, Ushijima’s blood turns cold and just as he is about to leap from the bed, hands close around his arms and legs and lift him easily from the bed and out of his bedroom while someone else shoves a blindfold over his face. He doesn’t struggle as they carry him off and away to God knows where, just waits patiently until they set him down on the floor and take his blindfold off.

He feels hands tickling his neck and tenses up, squirming, only to hear a smack far too close to his face for his liking.

“Don’t do that,” He hears a voice hiss. Suga’s.

“Why not?” Kei’s voice rings in his ears. “It’s funny. He’s a sitting duck.”

Ushijima shuffles uncomfortably. “He can hear you.” He says before he turns his head around blindly. “Can someone tell me what’s happen now, please? And can someone take this blindfold off me?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, someone pulls the blindfold from his eyes and he blinks, startled by the brightness of the lights until his eyes adjust, and then his heart plummets in his chest. “Oh.”

Tooru grins at him. “It’s about time you joined us, Ushiwaka.” He says happily as he holds out his hand for Ushijima to take, pulling him up from the floor once he takes it. “So this is your initiation; time to paint your Hanahaki.”

Ushijima is shaking his head before Tooru even finishes. “No,” He says quietly. “No.”

Suga gives him a reassuring smile and steps forward to rest a comforting hand on Ushijima’s shoulder. “It’s alright,” he says. “We’ve all been through the same thing. We know how hard it is—we understand, Ushijima.”

Ushijima swallows hard and shakes his head again slowly. “No,” he repeats, louder this time. “Please. Don’t make me do this.”

“You’ll feel better once you do it,” Shouyou’s voice comes and Ushijima’s eyes snap up to his, scanning over his apologetic smile and the way he reaches out for Ushijima. He moves through the small crowd until he’s almost toe-to-toe with Ushijima, picks up his hand and presses something into it. “I promise.” He says. 

Slowly, Ushijima casts his eyes away from Shouyou’s ones, ignoring how they drip with meaning, and down to his hand where he uncurls his fingers from the first they’ve been pressed into to. In his palm is a paintbrush. His gaze travels back upwards to meet Shouyou’s once more, and, when they meet, Shouyou smiles so brilliantly he could swear he was staring at the sun.

Shouyou takes his free hand and tugs him over to the mural, scanning over the flowers until his eyes light up and he points to a flower. “Here,” He says, looking back to Ushijima to tug him closer. “You can paint yours next to mine.” 

Out of all the flowers that Ushijima might have guessed that Shouyou coughed up, bluebells were not one of them.

There is something so delicate about bluebells, something so beautiful in their curved stem and swirling leaves. The flowers themselves look like fairy skirts, or bells, and he expects them to ring when he brushes by them, his leg or coat hem catching on the blooms, and fill his ears with the beautiful music of nature.

Ushijima wonders why— why bluebells? Why not carnations or lilies, or daises or lavender.

Were they a reminder of something about the person that Shouyou loved? Did he see the blue of their eyes in the deep, purple-blue of the bluebell petals? Was the person that he loved as delicate as the blooms? Did they drift in an out of the grass like a fairy? Or were they silently beautiful, just like the flowers?

To rid his mind of his swirling thoughts, Ushijima shakes his head and swallows hard, gripping the paintbrush firmly in his hand as Shouyou presses a palette of paint into his other hand. The crowd of people are silent as they watch Ushijima stare at the blank patch of green in front of him, and hold in their breath as he dips the paintbrush into a dollop of red paint. 

He lifts the paintbrush up to the wall, and sucks in a deep breath, his hands shaking violently as his hand hovers over the wall, unsure.

The first stroke is small and tentative, but the moment it is on the wall anger bubbles up Ushijima’s throat like fire and he scowls furiously, glaring at the wall as he launches forward to jab the paintbrush into the wall over and over, mixing in whites to he can properly shade the blotted petals. At some point, he switches the red for green, so he can form a jagged stem and rough petals.  
The minute he’s finished, his chest heaving, he drops the paintbrush and the palette and steps back, his vision swimming dizzyingly in front of him as he takes in the view of his rose next to Shouyou’s carefully painted patch of bluebells. He backs himself up into the wall behind him and sinks down to the ground, shoving his head into his hands as he tries to steady his breathing. 

“Ushijima,” Suga’s voice comes, an arm wrapping around his shoulder. “Well done. I’m proud of you.”

Ushijima gasps, his eyes burning as he struggles to swallow down his tears. Another arm joins Suga’s and hair tickles his neck. “It’s alright,” Shouyou’s says, his voice a whispered promise in Ushijima’s ears. “I’m here now. I’ve got you.” 

The words pierce Ushijima’s heart and he gasps again, his shoulder heaving before he lets out a whimpering noise and begins to sob, his entire body wracked by the force of his cries. One hand leaves his shoulder and he leans away and into Shouyou, burrowing into him when Shouyou embraces him entirely, stroking his hair gently and whispering soft, comforting words. 

“Shou,” He hears Akaashi say. “We’re going to go get tea.”

Shouyou shifts slightly and he feels the vibration of Shouyou’s hum of acknowledgement. “Okay,” Shouyou replies. “I’m going to stay with Ushijima. I think he needs someone. We’ll meet you later.” 

“See you later.” Akaashi replies, and Ushijima stay stock still until his footsteps fade into a silence filled with his sniffles and sobs.

Shouyou’s hand is a soothing weight over his shoulder blade, and he pulls his face away from Shouyou’s chest to dry his eyes with the back of his hand. They don’t say anything but Shouyou keeps rubbing small circles on Ushijima’s back and waits patiently until he’s ready to say something.

Ushijima looks to Shouyou with a stiff sort of smile. “Sorry,” he sniffs. “I got your shirt wet.”

Shouyou smiles back and pokes him in the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, I have other shirts.” He says. “Just as long as you’re okay.”

“Well,” Ushijima chuckles, leaning his head back against the wall. “I don’t know anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Shouyou asks carefully, peering up at Ushijima with inquisitive eyes.

“I don’t know.” Ushijima shrugs. “It’s weird.”

Shouyou raises an eyebrow. “You’re not going to try to kill yourself again, are you?” He asks, and Ushijima shakes his head.

“No,” Ushijima says. “I wouldn’t do that.” 

“I’m glad.” Shouyou tells him with a relieved smile. “But what’s weird?” 

Ushijima sighs and settles himself more comfortably against the wall. “At my first therapy appointment with Takeda, he told me that I probably had trauma brought on by the way that I was found before my surgery. When I got out of the hospital after… _That_ , he said PTSD.” He says quietly, staring resolutely down at his hand or at the mural instead of Shouyou. “I didn’t think I could get PTSD, I thought that was something only soldiers got.” 

“Yeah, I get it.” Shouyou says. “You think you’re safe from it and then something traumatic happens and your entire brain shuts down. You start forgetting things. You can’t look at the colour blue.” He shivers and Ushijima looks to him, eyes wide for a moment until Shouyou turns to him and offers a weak smile. “It’s not very fun, is it?”

Ushijima shakes his head slowly. “No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”

“I get it.” Shouyou repeats looking away from Ushijima to stare at the mural. “How it feels to be hopeless, to be haunted by someone you want to forget.” He grips at his forearms tightly, his knuckles turning paper white from the pressure. “I know how much it hurts, how much it makes you want to hurt.” 

Ushijima stares down at Shouyou’s arms, eyeing the small white lines up and down them like a jagged scribble before he tugs them close against his chest and gives Ushijima a pained smile. 

“You tried to do it too.” Ushijima says softly and Shouyou looks down at his arms. “Just in a different way.” 

“My way hurt more.” Shouyou says, rubbing his arms. 

Ushijima shrugs. “Doesn’t mean that you didn’t try.” He says. “It doesn’t mean that it means any less.”

“I didn’t mean to try and kill myself at first,” Shouyou says suddenly and Ushijima stops, staring at Shouyou as he scratches absently at his arms, raking his nails up and down the scars. “It just felt… like I could control something after I was diagnosed with Hanahaki. After the repressors stopped working, I cut too deep. I didn’t mean to but I just… accepted it…” He trails off before he glances up at Ushijima. “I couldn’t stand it when you accepted what you did like I did.”

“But you didn’t give up.” Ushijima reminds him. 

Shouyou smiles faintly, brushing his hair back from his face. “No,” he says. “I didn’t.” 

“Then I won’t give up again either.” Ushijima says and Shouyou takes one look at his face before bursting into laughter. Ushijima frowns. “What?” He asks.

Shouyou pokes Ushijima in the side of the head as he giggles. “You’re so _serious_ , Wakatoshi!”

Ushijima laughs and swats Shouyou’s hand away. “Sometimes that’s a good thing.” He says and Shouyou just grins at him. “Shou?” He asks quietly.

“Yeah?” Shouyou replies.

“I’m sorry for kissing you without warning, and putting you on the spot like that.” Ushijima says and Shouyou flushes a bright pink, immediately averting his eyes from Ushijima’s as he buries the lower half of his face in the neck of his t-shirt. “That wasn’t my intention, so I wanted to apologise for making you feel cornered.” 

Shouyou smiles and nudges Ushijima’s shoulder with his own. “Don’t worry about it, Ushijima, you’re always so serious.” He teases as Ushijima smiles. “It wasn’t a bad kiss, just for the record. But thank you, it means a lot that you apologised.”

Ushijima shakes his head and then stills. “Shou? What were you going to say when you came to tell me that you didn’t like me like that?” He asks and Shouyou stills very suddenly, like a deer caught in the headlights of Ushijima’s thoughts. “Someone not… Someone not what?” 

Slowly, Shouyou thaws and he chuckles as he draws his knees up to his chest, burying his chin in the dip between them. “Someone not broken.” He says quietly. “Someone that’s not damaged goods.”

“You’re not broken.” Ushijima says suddenly and loudly, and Shouyou startles before he peers up at Ushijima with wide eyes and his head tilting slightly to the side. “You don’t need to be fixed. Why do you think you’re broken?”

“Because, _fuck_!” Shouyou says almost bitterly, sitting straight up as he laughs breathlessly and gestures around him. “Look where we are, Wakatoshi, we’re in a hospital for people who can’t help but be so broken their bodies produce flowers in response to heartbreak.” He clutches at his shirt over his heart. “I don’t know what I am if I’m not broken. And I am, broken and heartbroken; and I can’t love again.”

For a moment, Ushijima just stares down at him until; “Do you want to love again?” He asks and Shouyou tangles his fingers in his hair.

“ _Of course_ I want to love again!” Shouyou snaps at him, but Ushijima can’t find it in his heart to be upset. “I waited so, _so_ long for someone to come so I could love them and they could love me. I need it, I craved it. I… never expected that I’d find _you_ here. I never expected that _I’d_ —” Shouyou cuts himself off sharply, gasping in air before he can finish, squeezing his eyes shut as tries to hold down his own tears. “That I’d end up fearing… love and intimacy.”

“Why are you afraid?” Ushijima asks slowly. “The flowers?”

Shouyou laughs again, bitterly. “The flowers.” He repeats in cynical agreement. “Those fucking flowers. I can’t stomach anything blue, I can’t look at snowdrops again. The first time I saw them after coughing them up, I tore up my front garden.” He breathes deeply, trying to swallow his anger. “I can help but wondering… what if I cough them up again? I couldn’t…”

Ushijima remembers Takeda’s words, and he repeats them. “What if you don’t.”

“The chance would be a fine thing.” Shouyou replies before he pauses, his face softening. “I want to believe that my next love will be happy. That I won’t have my heart broken again; but a broken heart is inevitable in every way.” He looks suddenly up at Ushijima. “Wakatoshi, I hate flowers. The ones I coughed up and the ones I haven’t seen and all the ones in between. I hate them so much.” 

For a split second, Ushijima hesitates, considers his feelings. Roses make him feel sick, but sunflowers, dandelions, baby’s breath, all the ones yellow and orange and bright and smiling remind him of Shouyou and how everything doesn’t feel so bad when he’s with him. So, he decides, all flowers can’t be that bad is they make him feel okay again. 

“I thought I hated them too.” Ushijima says quietly. “You’re just blinded.” 

“Of course I am.” Shouyou says, swallowing heavily. “I see them every time I close my eyes. You told me about the roses and I… imagined how it would feel to cough them up.” He admits and Ushijima’s eyes widen as Shouyou screws his eyes shut, disgusted at himself. “But that’s pathetic. Disgusting. Insulting.”

“I do the same.” Ushijima admits.

 Shouyou slowly reaches out to clutch his own throat. “It’s bad…” He says before he looks to Ushijima, his eyes filled with… _something_ he can’t recognise. “But it feels good. It’s detached; it’s not your own pain.”

Ushijima nods, swallowing heavily. “But it’s bad.” He repeats. 

As if breaking from a trace, Shouyou’s hands jolt away from his neck and he stares down at them for a moment before he nods, crossing his arms. “Yeah,” He agrees heavily. “Bad.” 

“But I’m here,” Ushijima says quickly. “I’m your friend and I’ll always be here.”

“We’re friends?” Shouyou asks quietly, and, for a moment Ushijima’s worries that he’s annoyed or mad, but Shouyou just puts on an overly fake pout. “I’d say best friends.” He says and Ushijima laughs.

Ushijima holds his pinkie out to Shouyou. “Best friends?” He asks.

Best friends.” Shouyou agrees, linking his pinkie with Ushijima’s. For a whole two minutes, they sit in comfortable silence, the heaviness of their previous conversation dissipated into their bodies and the emotion around them. “What’d’ya say, Wakatoshi, do you want to go get tea?” He asks, dropping Ushijima’s hand as he takes to his feet.

“Go ahead,” Ushijima tells him. “I’ll catch up.” 

He waits, smiling for Shouyou to leave with a smile and a wave before he doubles over, his chest heaving as he pulls himself up from the floor and staggers back to his bedroom, almost collapsing into his bathroom as he scrambles for the porcelain basin of the sink. Quite suddenly, Ushijima finds himself drowning—suffocating in his own mass as he claws uselessly at his neck and coughs, yellow petals falling from his lips like unspoken words. 

And there’s something crawling up his throat, something as soft as silk, and he heaves one, twice more before he coughs it up. It lands, upside down, about the size of a tennis ball and coated in saliva, in the middle of the sink, close to the drain. He gasps in a shaking breath, tries to force himself to stare straight as he raises a trembling hand to the tap and runs cool water over the flower, scooping it up with his hand to drink. 

Once he thinks he’s ready, he flips the flower over, and his stomach turns, his vision sways, and he grasps onto the sink to steady himself. His knuckles white.

Almost defiantly, he stares down into the brown, swirling face of the sunflower and he almost wills it to dissolve in front of his eyes, turn into a mushy pile of yellow and brown and green and disappear. His hands shake on the sink. His life would be so much easier if it just went away. 

He feels the bile rising in his throat. The yellow he coughed up a week ago. It wasn’t paper.

 _Not again_.

Ushijima can feel himself clawing at his throat desperately, trying to tear inside himself and rip the flowers out by their roots. 

 _He can’t be in love_.

The proof is right under his nose. But he doesn’t want to stomach it; he can’t. Accepting that would be accepting another world full of pain, because Shouyou was blunt about his feelings. They’re best friends, nothing more.

 _But he wants more. He wants it so bad_. 

And his throat burns, tears underneath the coarse leaves as he coughs up a waterfall of sunflower petals and a bare head. Tiny, swirling flowers crawling up his throat like spider’s legs as he coughs up tiny white baby’s breath, joined shortly after by the round heads of yellow dandelions.

 _Shouyou can never know_.

Ushijima imagines himself swimming in an ocean of flowers that he’s coughed up for Shouyou, drifting in and out of the petals and feeling the scratch of the leaves on his skin like the gentle caress of Shouyou’s fingers. But he’s not in love, he’s given up on love; he gave up on love the minute the last red rose, fully bloomed and tragically beautiful, passed his lips with a spattering of blood, the petals dripping with it.

 _His secret_.

This will all be his secret. Because he can’t be in love with Shouyou though he desperately wants to. He will smile at his friendship, enjoy the sparse hugs and Shouyou’s smile as long as he can. And Shouyou will never know. He will never know because he does love him, but he'd rather suffocate on his secret than sacrifice what strong friendship they've built.

 _It’ll kill him_.

But it will be miles better than telling anybody about it. It will give him more peace that having the flowers removed and seeing Shouyou’s face every day, unknowing, oblivious. But it won’t be his fault, even then. He doesn’t want to hate the three flowers he has come to love; he wants to love them and hold them close to his heart. 

So, Ushijima pries open the window and throws the flowers he’s coughed up into the courtyard below him, where they scatter across the concrete like spilled sunshine.

And he feels a lot better for doing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: [ cherry-kirsch ](cherry-kirsch.tumblr.com) || twitter: [ cherriwrites ](https://twitter.com/cherriwrites)


	6. a sprig of rain flower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw; casual drinking, alcohol mention
> 
> If you reach the end, I'd appreciate you reading the note there! Enjoy the chapter!

“It’s been a while since our last session, would you like to tell me about some things that have happened?”

He grins so wide that to Takeda it looks as bright as the sun. “I made a friend! We watch TV together, and we play video games and he likes volleyball; but he doesn’t talk about it much.”

Takeda nods, a smile curving his lips. “Is that so?” He hums happily. “I’m glad you’ve made another friend. Do you expect to be friends after all of this?” 

He considers this for a moment before nodding slowly. “We have a lot in common! I hope so!” 

* * *

He is wrapped under one of Suga’s jumpers and shivering on the chair, dark circles ringing his eyes like smudged eyeliner. Takeda eyes him with worry as he speaks. “I found him, Takeda. He was so… pale and terrified, and I didn’t want to have to come and get you but I did.” He quivers again and Takeda is afraid that He might cry. “For the first time… in a year… I felt like I needed to cut again.”

“But you didn’t.” Takeda says.

He takes in a shaking breath. “No.” He says. “I wanted control again, I thought he was slipping away after I… Just… as long as he’ll be okay.”

“He will be,” Takeda assures Him. “Ukai is a very reliable doctor. He’s always been good with these situations.”

“He’s always been good with me.” He says and Takeda smiles.

“You have nothing to worry about.” Takeda says. 

He nods in agreement, tugs the sleeves of Suga’s sweater over his hands. “I really care about him is all.” He says. “He gave up. He reminds me of my self. I don’t want him to give up, he’s too strong for that.”

Takeda eyes Him carefully. “You’re too strong to give up too.”

He nods. “Yeah.”

* * * 

“I think I’m in love.” He says and Takeda stills in his seat. 

“Really?” Takeda asks after a moment, leaning at Him across the desk. “Is that so?” 

He nods slowly. “He makes me feel happy, and he makes me laugh.” He says with a tentative smile. “He understands the things I like. He’s kind. That’s what matters most to me.”

Takeda smiles at Him. “I’m glad you’re happy.” He tells Him before his face falls slightly. “I just have to warn you, please be careful. You’re only just recovering from your surgery and attempt. I don’t mean to put you down; I just want you to be safe.” 

“I’ll be fine.” He assures Takeda with a smile before it falls, creasing His face. “I don’t think I’ll tell him for a while anyway… I… can’t do that yet.”

* * * 

He is heaving into the porcelain basin of the toilet. Suga is rubbing His back soothingly and pining as much as His hair as he can with the hairclips that Tooru is handing him. Tooru is sitting opposite Him, his back against the wall as he holds a volleyball magazine between his thumb and forefinger, reading out portions quietly to Him whenever there is a break in his ragged breathing. 

“It’s okay…” Suga tell Him quietly as He begins to softly whimper, crying into the toilet. “Just get it all out.”

Tooru places the magazine down gently, careful not to crumble it and moves to fix His hairclips. “We’re right here.” Tooru tells Him quietly as the soft crying dissolves into heavy sobbing. “We’ll stay until you want us to go.”

He nods and when He leans over the toilet again, leaving Suga and Tooru to wince as a painful retching noise echoes around the tiny, cramped bathroom, he leans up with lips stained with blood. “Hurts…” He whispers quietly, leaning His too-hot face against the cool basin, whimpering as Tooru gently strokes his hair from his face. “Hurts so much…”

“Just get the flower up.” Tooru tells him quietly. “Then it’ll hurt less. Can you do that?” 

For a moment, He is still and then He nods, pulling himself up to retch two more times before a flower about the size of Suga’s fist falls from His lips and into the toilet. Defeated, He collapses on the floor as Tooru leans over him to wipe his lips. Hibiscus.

“Oh,” Suga breathes quietly as he joins Him on the floor. “Oh, Shou…”

Shouyou squeezes his eyes shut, tears leaking from the corners and dripping down his cheeks. “I love him.” He manages, forcing the words out in gasping, desperate breaths. “I love him but it hurts. I told him he couldn’t love me, Suga, I told him he couldn’t. But I want him to.” 

Tooru frowns at that, his fingers stilling on Shouyou’s face. “Why did you say that?” He asks quietly and gently. “Why did you tell him that if you didn’t mean it?”

“Because I’m too broken.” Shouyou whispers, his voice dissolving in the heavy silence of his bathroom. “There’s nothing good to come out of loving me.” 

“Is this because of Tobio?” Tooru asks, glancing at Suga who just shakes his head slowly. Tooru’s face softens and looks down at Shouyou. “You’re not broken, Shou. I promise you that you’re not.”

Suga reaches out to squeeze Shouyou’s hand. “Who do you love?” he asks quietly. “You can tell us.”

The name is muffled in the fabric of Tooru’s sweatpants but Suga and Tooru hear it all the same. And, as Shouyou sobs on Tooru’s lap, they share a glance dripping with anxiety and pain over his body. 

“Don’t tell Takeda.” Shouyou says. “Please.”

Despite himself, Suga promises that he won’t even as Shouyou coughs up mallow and small scatterings of pansies. Tooru promises nothing, but whispers things to Shouyou that quieten his sobs to gentle sniffles as he cries himself quietly to sleep.

* * *

Shouyou is a dandelion in the setting summer sun, sipping peach schnapps from a bottle that Iwaizumi snuck in for Tooru. They are not meant to be drinking, they all know this, but Saeko turned a blind eye and so did Mika, even Suga is joining in, lounging on Akaashi’s lap nursing his own jar of convenience store sake as they joke and laugh. For once, they feel like teenagers again, albeit rather rebellious ones.

As Ushijima reaches the bottom of his second can of cider, but technically his fourth drink, he is ecstatic to find that he feels genuinely, and honest-to-god truly happy. He doesn’t feel the pressure on his chest that has him heaving up yellow flowers that remind him of Shouyou’s smile, and he doesn’t feel utterly hopeless and passively depressed. Tooru is hanging off his arm, absolutely tipsy and flushed in the face as he laughs at something Kiyoko says to him.

When Ushijima tells Yui this, she grins so wide that it looks like something carved out of a pumpkin and leans forward to pat his cheek. “Good.” She tells him, and her words are a little wobbly, like her tongue is too heavy for her and keeps weighing her words down. “You need all the happiness you can get in life.”

The she presses another drink in her hands and skips off with Kei to get firewood to make a bonfire in the fire pit. Ushijima sips this new drink – at this point, he doesn’t bother to ask – and finds comfort in the way how it tastes bitter on his tongue, like the coconut rum Kiyoko made him try while she was mixing her own pina colada, and slightly like cherries. It lingers on his lips long after he finishes the drink and takes the water bottle handed to him by Suga.

Tooru has his phone out, and he seems to be plugging something into it until he grins brightly and the sound of thumping pop music fills his ears. It takes him a while to notice that the words are not in Japanese, but in English – he can pick most of the sentences out, but the rest become jumbled with other, indecipherable in the recesses of his mind.

“English?” Ushijima asks him as Tooru staggers to his feet, causing giggles to erupt across the company as he leans on Ushijima’s shoulder. “Why?”

Tooru leans close to Ushijima and plants a kiss that smells like berries on his cheek. “It’s good music, Japan!” He says happily. “I like the beat. I don’t know what it says. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it, right, Chibi?” He asks, turning to Shouyou with a pout.

Shouyou turns and smiles. “Right!” He giggles as he leans himself on Kiyoko. “You’re _so cool_ , Tooru-chan!”

The honorific is a little strange on Shouyou’s tongue and Ushijima chuckles. Tooru smirks and sways his hips to the music. “I know I am!” He says enthusiastically as he flips hair from his eyes before he offers his hand to Ushijima. “Come on, Ushiwaka—live a little, let’s dance!”

Normally, Ushijima wouldn’t accept Tooru’s offer to dance, it’s not something that he does. But, normally, Ushijima isn’t drunk. So, Ushijima grins lazily and places the water bottle down to take Tooru’s hand and stand, laughing as Oikawa immediately clings to him in a waltz and starts spinning around with Ushijima in his arms.

Tooru is leading. 

“Careful,” Ushijima says, because though he may be drunk, he still has some common sense. “You’ll be sick.”

Tooru giggles. “That’s a problem for Tomorrow-Me.” He tells him quietly before his hand go to squeeze as Ushijima’s hips. “Put some enthusiasm into it, Ushiwaka! Your hip work is _atrocious_!”

Ushijima does what Tooru says and watches as Tooru makes a pleased smile and collapses against Ushijima’s chest. Ushijima pats Tooru awkwardly on the head. “You okay there?” He asks and Tooru nods against the fabric of his shirt, exhaling slowly. “Need a break?” 

Since Kei and Yui had returned from their quest and lit the bonfire, the rest of the people around them, taken by Ushijima and Tooru’s scene, have also gotten up to dance and are giggling and swaying gently. Ushijima’s eyes immediately fix onto Shouyou who is laughing with Kei as they copy each other’s dance moves, he watches as Kei says something with a smirk and Shouyou gasps, smacks him on the shoulder and replies with laughter and words he can’t decipher.

Tooru’s hands tear his gaze away from Shouyou and tilt his head down to Tooru, who is squinting up at him. “Don’t pay attention to Chibi,” Tooru whines. “Pay attention to me.”

Ushijima blinks slowly. “I am.” He says, swaying slowly. “You are my focus.” 

“Good.” Tooru sniffs before he boops Ushijima on the nose. “’Coz I have something to tell you.” 

Ushijima allows his eyes to close as he hums quietly in agreement. “Yeah?”

Tooru tugs Ushijima’s face down until his lips are right next to Ushijima’s ear. “Shou’s in love!” He whispers happily, giggling as he pulls away and gets a good look at the bewildered look on Ushijima’s face. Tooru reaches out to squish Ushijima’s cheeks. “I’m worried about him… he won’t tell the person he loves… he’s gonna get hurt…”

Ushijima takes a good look at Tooru and sighs, moving to cup Tooru’s face. “You’re drunk, Tooru.”

“We should kiss.” Tooru slurs happily, trying to lean close enough to plant his lips against Ushijima’s, whining when Ushijima holds him back. “C’mon Ushiwaka!” 

“No,” Ushijima tells him before he pats Tooru’s head. “Go kiss Suga.”

At that, Tooru smiles and detaches himself from Ushijima. “I will!” He says, ticking his tongue out at Ushijima before he wobbles over to Suga and engages him in a deep kiss.

Ushijima watches him go and jumps when a hand slaps down on his shoulder. He looks to his right to see Kei, who just smirks at him as he passes him a can of cider. “Well done fending off Tooru.” He tells him, taking a long sip of his own can. “You don’t wanna kiss him?”

“He’s drunk.” Ushijima says and Kei pokes his temple.

“So are you, idiot,” Kei tells him. “You trying to tell me you wanna kiss him?” 

“He has a boyfriend.” Ushijima says, glaring when Kei opens his mouth to say something. “Besides, there’s only one person I wanna kiss.” He adds, staring resolutely down at his can.

Kei chuckles. “You wanna kiss me?” He asks, laughing when Ushijima’s head snaps up to meet his eyes. “I’m joking, Ushijima, you take things to seriously. I know you wanna kiss the shrimp, it’s written all over your devilishly handsome face.” Ushijima spits out his drink at that and Kei smiles at him. 

He blinks at Kei. “How did you? —” He begins only to be cut off by Kei draping an arm around his shoulder.

“Told you.” He says simply. “It’s written all over your stupidly gorgeous face.”

Ushijima watches as Kei takes the next sip as if his drink is souring on his tongue. “You sure it isn’t you who wants to kiss me?” Ushijima blurts and Kei glances at him. “And, for the record; I… don’t want to kiss Shou.”

Kei shrugs and begins to walk away, gravitating back towards Akaashi and Kiyoko. “Doesn’t matter to me.” He says airily before he shoots a grin back at Ushijima. “I wanna kiss a lot of people, better to do it when you’re drunk and feeling so happy you could die. Better to do it when you can’t remember it.”

The sky that was once a rainbow of pink, orange and yellow is now navy black-blue and dotted with silver stars like spilt craft glitter. Messy. But in the most beautiful way. Ushijima sinks down to lie on the grass again and leans back to look at the sky, placing his can somewhere in the grass beside him so he could find it later if he needed to. He sees the moon slowly rising in the sky and hears Suga and Kiyoko’s giggling in the air mingling with the sound of crackling wood.

The alcohol and happiness in the air around him is almost as powerful as the delicious, warming smell of burning wood. He blinks, if only for an instant, and when he opens his eyes again Shouyou is standing over him and peering down at him curiously, his grin stretching when Ushijima gives him a bright grin.

Ushijima opens his arms. “Favourite.” He says, and Shouyou’s giggle warms his chest. 

Shouyou sits in the grass beside him as Ushijima pulls himself up. “That’s a bit mean to everyone else.” Shouyou says with a faux look of sternness. “They’re here too.”

“I know.” Ushijima says with a slow nod. “But I like you a lot.”

For a moment, Shouyou pauses and Ushijima swears he catches the faintest of blushes on his cheeks before he smacks Ushijima on the shoulder and pouts. He decides that the blush must’ve been a trick of the light. “Stupid. Silly.” He scolds before he pauses. “I like you a lot too.”

Ushijima smiles and leans his head on Shouyou’s shoulder. “I’d never be mean to you.”

Shouyou begins to card his hands through Ushijima’s hair. “Me neither.”

“Don’t do it again.” Ushijima tells him and Shouyou’s hands go still. “Don’t hurt yourself ever again.” 

He feels Shouyou shrug beneath him. “I don’t do that anymore. I’ll never do that again.” Suddenly, Shouyou goes very stiff and Ushijima leans away to get a good look at Shouyou’s face. He’s gone deathly pale under the light of the crackling bonfire, and, at the sight of Ushijima’s face he scrambles to his feet. “I need… bathroom…” He manages, dashing inside before Ushijima can stop at him.

Tooru hollers at him from his place hanging off Akaashi’s arm. “Chibi’s tapped out!” He cries. “He’s throwing up!”

“Don’t be mean!” Suga scolds, smacking Tooru on the arm. “Someone should go help him.”

Yui and Kei are spinning around the bonfire like a pair of ballroom dancers and both yell, “Not it!”, at Suga’s words. Kiyoko is leaning heavily against Suga, her head rested on his shoulder, and, simultaneously, everyone turns to look at Ushijima who just smiles and stands.

“I’ll go.” He says.

Tooru pouts and reaches for him, only to be tugged back by Akaashi. “No!” He whines loudly. “Ushiwaka!”

Suga slaps his hand over Tooru’s mouth. “Thanks.” He says with a lazy grin. 

As Ushijima strides into the delightfully air-conditioned ward, he sighs lowly, relishing in the feeling of the cool air on his slightly too-hot skin. After a moment of standing happily in the doorway he takes off into the building to find Shouyou’s room, occasionally knocking into chairs or walls as he goes, by following the trail of lights that were turned on by Shouyou’s hurried sprint to find a bathroom.  
It takes him only a couple of minutes to get to Shouyou’s room, wincing slightly when he hears the retching coming from inside. Without knocking, Ushijima strides into the room to see the very unattractive view of a sweaty boy hunched over and vomiting into a toilet. Though Shouyou can’t see him, Ushijima gives him a sympathetic look and approaches. 

Shouyou doesn’t notice him until he’s taken his place on the bathroom floor next to the toilet and is rubbing his back soothingly. Then he glares, despite the river of tears streaming down his face.

Ushijima doesn’t notice this. “It’s okay.” He tells Shouyou. “I’m here now. Just get it all out.” 

Shouyou furiously shakes his head. “No,” He rasps, swatting Ushijima’s hand away. “I don’t want you here.”

“I know it’s not pretty but I wanna be here for you.” Ushijima says. “We’re friends. I’m gonna stay and help you.”

Shouyou screws his eyes shut. “Go… away!” He chokes, the words catching his throat as he ducks his head back into the toilet. Ushijima’s eyes widen at the trail of blood dripping down his chin from the corner of his mouth. “Don’t… want…”

Just as Ushijima opens his mouth to say something, Shouyou leans up to gulp in air and watches as a deep-purple mallow flower stained with blood and saliva falls from his lips on a long stem and drops unceremoniously into the toilet basin. Enraptured, Ushijima watches as Shouyou coughs and catches a handful of pansies.

With dangerous eyes filled with tears, Shouyou looks up at him. “There,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “Are you happy now?”

Ushijima a piece of toilet paper from the roll and leans forward to wipe the blood from Shouyou’s lips. “No.” He says quietly. “You never told me you were in love. Shou… who hurt you?”

Shouyou just scowls and throws the handful of pansies at Ushijima. He flinches back as if he was slapped, ignoring the way the saliva and blood-coated pansies stick to his shirt. “You’re such a fucking idiot.” Shouyou spits at him as Ushijima stares, too shocked to even speak. “I told you to leave me alone. God, I should have never let you be my friend, all you give me is trouble.”

Ushijima blinks, and his shock quickly dissolves into anger. “Who stuck a stick up your ass?” 

Shouyou ignores him as he flushes the toilet, watching as the mallow disappears in a violent swirl of water. “I wanted my next to love to be happy.” Shouyou says as he leans his forehead against the toilet. “You know, I waited so, _so_ long for someone to come so I could love them and they could love me. I never expected that I’d fall in love here.” The words are as bitter as coffee grinds on his lips.

Ushijima’s heart squeezes painfully in his chest, all the anger dissolving into heartbreak. “Who is it?” He asks quietly.

“Doesn’t matter.” Shouyou says as he turns his head away, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “It’s none of your business. Go away.”

“I’m not leaving you, Shouyou.” Ushijima says and Shouyou just scoffs.

“You know you’re not the first person to say that, right?” Shouyou says and Ushijima immediately closes his mouth, shrinking away when Shouyou looks back to glare so deeply he feels like his eyes have burned a hole in his chest. “Whatever. You know, it doesn’t even matter. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Don’t pretend to care.”

Ushijima feels the petals rising in his throat like bile and he struggles to choke them down, the image of the flowers falling from Shouyou’s mouth ingrained so deeply into the back of his mind that it causes his hands to shake, his mind to cloud over, all parts of his body immediately go into shut down. Regardless, he shuffles closer to Shouyou, who just shuffles away, pressing himself against the wall furthest from Ushijima.

“Don’t.” Shouyou tells him, his voice cracking and breaking. “Don’t you _dare_.”

As much as Ushijima wants to close the distance between them, hold Shouyou carefully in his arms and soothe him through this, he lets his hands drop and rest on the floor. He nods and leans against the wall nearest to him. “I’m not pretending.” He says, and Shouyou rolls his eyes. “I’m not. I could never pretend around you Shouyou.”

Shouyou pulls his knees up to his chest. “Everyone pretends.” He says quietly as he looks away, suddenly very interested in his jeans. “I’m not an idiot.”

“No.” Ushijima agrees with a nod. He looks down at his hands, interlocking his fingers. “Tooru told me that you were in love.”

Shouyou stiffens. “He wouldn’t have.” He says quietly, as if he doesn’t want to believe it. 

Ushijima shrugs. “He was drunk.” He says in way of explanation. “I… didn’t believe him until just now… when I saw… the flowers… I just want to know who…”

Shouyou groans and knots his fingers in his hair. “You just don’t get it, do you?” He says angrily and Ushijima immediately flinches back when Shouyou looks up to glare at him. “You think all of this can be fixed by me confessing to the guy? You’re wrong, and you’re full of bullshit. I can’t love anyone when I’m in here, this is the place where you learn to be happy. You can’t love anyone when you’re still learning how to stand after you’ve just gotten the biggest knock of your life.”

“Are you happy with him not knowing?” Ushijima asks and Shouyou chuckles bitterly.

“What kind of question is that?” Shouyou asks, but Ushijima knows he doesn’t want an answer. “Of course I’m not happy with him not knowing. But it’s not as easy as that. I don’t know how to love myself, I don’t know to be happy. Neither do you.” Shouyou says, gesturing to Ushijima as his eyes fill with crystalline tears. “How are we supposed to love each other when the most genuine, extended happiness we’ve had in four months is found at the bottom of a bottle?”

In a spinning moment of realisation, Ushijima’s entire universe stops.

He watches Shouyou’s face crumple and break in front of him, dripping tears like spilt diamonds onto the tile floor as he clutches at his hair and screws his eyes shut, and Ushijima’s heart aches as he looks at him. All he sees is Shouyou, all he thinks is Shouyou, and how (if he understood right) Shouyou loves him, even as Shouyou folds over and begins coughing again, sobs wracking his entire body.  
The flowers crawl up his throat and splatter the bathroom floor, and Ushijima too begins to cough up yellow petals, watching as they scatter across Shouyou’s patchwork of pansies and mallow flowers and as Shouyou’s eyes widen and his head snaps up to meet Ushijima’s eyes with an ocean of hurt. Ushijima just smiles, coughs up the swirling, smiling face of a sunflower in the cup of his hands and presents it to him.

“You like sunflowers,” Ushijima croaks, his voice as rough as sandpaper. “Because you can eat the seeds.” 

Shouyou stares before he plasters his hands over his mouth, coughing once, twice more before he pulls his hands away and a blood-stained but perfect hibiscus flower sits between them. “You like hibiscus. Because you had it in champagne on New Year’s.” Shouyou whispers before his face crumples again and his hands close into fists, crushing the flower as he lifts his fists to rub at his eyes. “You’re such an idiot. Why did I have to fall in love with you? But God, fuck, I’m so… _so_ glad it was you.”

Ushijima drops the sunflower into the pile between them and carefully closes the distance between them to cup Shouyou’s face in his hands, stroking falling tears from his cheeks. “You’re the only thing that seems right.” He whispers and Shouyou squeezes his eyes shut to stave off the new tears that threaten to spill over. “Even when you hate yourself; I love you. I know… this isn’t what you wanted… that you don’t want to start something in here, but I’m willing to give it a try after we’re both out.”

Shouyou stills beneath his fingers, peers up at him with glistening and hopeful eyes. “You’ll wait for me?” Shouyou asks quietly, Ushijima smiles, nodding as leans forward to press his forehead against Shouyou’s. “You’d do that for me?”

“I’ll wait for you.” Ushijima agrees. “I’d do anything for you, Shou. Anything you want.”

Shouyou nods, clutches a little tighter onto Ushijima and asks, “Are you gonna remember this in the morning?”

Ushijima considers this. “Yes.” He decides. “I will.”

“Then once we’re out we’ll meet in a coffee shop somewhere; we’ll start this properly and exchange numbers.” Shouyou tells him and Ushijima nods as he cards his hands through Shouyou’s hair. Then, Shouyou sucks in a deep breath. “But… for now… you can kiss me.” 

Ushijima pulls back to cup Shouyou’s face again, waiting for Shouyou’s nod of encouragement before he slowly leans in and presses his lips gently against his. This kiss tastes of flower petals and a lingering promise, and, when Ushijima pulls back to kiss Shouyou’s forehead, Shouyou hums happily and leans into Ushijima’s touch.

A final, single tear is swiped away when it reaches Shouyou’s cheek and replaced with a kiss.

“Don’t cry anymore.” Ushijima whispers against Shouyou’s skin. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Shouyou smiles and allows his eyes to flutter shut as he presses his forehead against Ushijima’s, basking in the warmth of his touch and the words that sink deep within him and stay there. 

They don’t cough up anymore flowers. 

* * *

Ushijima takes a sip of his coffee, bouncing his leg as he checks his watch for the thirtieth time that minute, growing more anxious the more he sees the numbers crawl closer to 13:30. The coffee shop is an orchestra of quiet chatter, coffee machines and gentle, relaxing music being played from the speakers in the corner. His eyes flit around the room, struggling to pick out anyone certain before he turns back to his coffee and takes another sip. 

It has been six months since he’s seen Shouyou. And then, finally, he sits down in the seat opposite him and places a hibiscus flower next to Ushijima’s cup as he sets a bottle of iced tea on his side of the table. Shouyou is wearing a sunshine-bright smile, and an equally as bright yellow sweater.

“Hey there, stranger,” Shouyou greets and Ushijima could almost cry from the emotion of it all. The words feel like too much and not enough at the same time, so he waits until Shouyou settles to say something—but still, Shouyou beats him to it. “I missed you.”

Ushijima nods enthusiastically, gripping tight onto his knees. “I… missed you too…” 

Shouyou giggles behind his hand. “You sound so formal, Wakatoshi,” He teases, and the use of his given name turns his cheeks pink. “God, you’re amazing.” 

Ushijima’s cheeks go red and Shouyou just smiles. Ushijima clears his throat. “I… have a question for you, Shouyou…” He says and Shouyou stifles laughter. “If you’d allow me to say it…”

“Of course,” Shouyou says, leaning forward to rest his head on his hand. “I’m all ears.”

Almost immediately, Ushijima’s mouth goes dry as all his courage leaves him. “I was wondering…” Ushijima begins, trailing off to gather his throat as he coughs again, cheeks growing redder by the second. “If… you would do me the honour of becoming my boyfriend!” 

The words come out too loud and several people turn to look at the sight of Ushijima, bent over in a bow as Shouyou laughs so hard he has to clasp his hand over his mouth to stop them coming out too loud. Ushijima peers up at Shouyou as he slowly calms down, his lips twitching as he grins down at him.

“Jeeze, we haven’t even been on a date yet,” Shouyou teases and Ushijima rubs his neck sheepishly. “But of course I’ll be your boyfriend.”

Ushijima immediately sits up straighter, smiling. “I’ll take you to the arcade.” He says as Shouyou looks at him in a way that makes him want to melt. It’s as if he finds everything that Ushijima does cute. “I’ll win you something cute. We can go now if you’d like.”

“You’ve not finished your coffee,” Shouyou says, gesturing to it before he watches on in abject horror as Ushijima snatches up the cup and chugs the remainder of the contents. He blinks as Ushijima places the cup down with a smile. “Well… Nevermind…” 

Ushijima stands and offers his hand to Shouyou. “Come on.” He says.” Let’s go on a date.”

Shouyou flushes pink and presses a hand over his heart before he takes Ushijima’s hand, their fingers interlocking as they exit the coffee shop and enter the bustling crowds of the streets in Tokyo.

Ushijima looks at Shouyou and sees a million things that he loves in his smile and the way it makes him feel okay. Shouyou looks at Ushijima and sees forever in the depth of his eyes, in the way he holds him so warmly that Shouyou immediately feels comfortable, like he’s found his home.

They say that true love comes once in a life time, and, with all his heart, Ushijima believes that Shouyou is his true love. Their love may not be perfect, but it’s what they need.

And, really, isn’t that what true love really is?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After five months, 'wishing on dandelions' has come to an end. And it is bittersweet, because while I am glad that this story is completed, it is very deeply personal to me and I am sad that I cannot write this anymore.
> 
> While writing this, I went through the process of seeing a counsellor for some things that happened in my past, and I always knew that if I was to write a Hanahaki AU that I'd write very much in detail about the aftermath of falling in love in a deeply traumatic way. These version of the Haikyuu!! characters have been my salvation for the past five months, and, for that, I am glad— both that I was able to give Ushijima and Hinata the happy ending they deserved, and that I managed to process my trauma.
> 
> This version of Ushijima experiences PTSD and depression from the traumatic experience he went through to get his Hanahaki Removal Surgery, he is triggered by the sight of red roses, he tried to kill himself. This version of Hinata experiences depression and extreme self-esteem issues all while maintaining a happy face until he breaks down, he was there when Ushijima tried to kill himself. These depictions of these characters represent me and someone in my life who is very important to me, and what happened between them represents what happened between me and that person.
> 
> Only while writing this, did I realise the parallels that can be drawn from this. And only while writing this did I process part of the trauma that I buried so deep within me that I couldn't find it. 
> 
> The ending for this story was always something very difficult for me to write. How could I give Ushijima and Hinata their happy endings when I hadn't found my own yet? It felt so strange to think of an ending that would satisfying without having gone through it on a personal level— so I idealised it, there is no mention of them both getting 'better' because that is not necessarily the case with mental illness. You find a way to be able to function with it through the use of therapy, medication or both.   
> Their happy ending is being able to find solace in the fact that they find the most comfort in each other, knowing that one person is always going to be there for each other, because they understand each other on a deeply personal and mental level. They know they are not broken, they do not need to be fixed, and some days may be bad but they have each other.
> 
> The other characters also carry little pieces of me and the other person as well, but not so deeply and intensely as these two. 
> 
> I wanted to write this note for (mainly) two reasons;  
> 1) I wanted to share this so others can know that it's okay to seek help; don't keep it bottled up like I did, don't let it fester until you can't cope anymore. Seeking help is the best thing you can do for yourself, and please, always remember that there will be someone there to listen to you.  
> 2) You're not broken. You don't need to be fixed. Even if you feel as if you are broken, I can assure you that you are not. You just need a little bit of a hand to help you up again. 
> 
> Side note: Love will never fix you. Love is not a 'cure'. Love will not be the thing that will magically everything better when you have a mental illness. Love will help you bear with it as long as you find someone who cares deeply about you, who accepts that you have a mental illness and loves you regardless. Love will help ease the pain and be there to support you.   
> This is not a story where Ushijima and Hinata's love makes them better — I just wanted to make a point of this because I've seen love used in a very romanticised way alongside mental illness before.
> 
> Finally, I want to thank you for sticking with me to the end, thank you for all the wonderful comments and kudos I've gotten on this fic; this means the world to me. <3


End file.
